


Dragons Ascendant

by Anonymous



Series: Blood of the Dragon [2]
Category: A Song of Ice and Fire & Related Fandoms, A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin
Genre: Alternate Universe - Dragons, Alternate Universe - Shapeshifters, Character Study, Dysfunctional Family, Dysfunctional Relationships, F/M, Gen, M/M, Shapeshifting
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-29
Updated: 2019-11-13
Packaged: 2021-01-08 06:15:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 6
Words: 33,673
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21231146
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/
Summary: In a world where the dragonlords are dragons in truth, the realm knows peace in the time of Jaehaerys and Alysanne. So too are the seeds sewn that will end the dragons forever, in fire and blood.Or: a series where the dragonriders of House Targaryen's golden era were the dragons themselves.





	1. The Red Prince

**Author's Note:**

> dragon rider = dragon
> 
> Some characters have lives that go more or less as canon. Others live a LOT longer or go out differently, as I sometimes conflate the fate of the rider with the dragon.

Prince Aemon Targaryen is born to the furious wailing of his older sister, who has demanded a little sister of her parents. Alysanne, strung out from the birth, cannot help but burst out laughing at her daughter's plight. This only enrages Daenerys further.

"Mama!" she yells, stomping both her feet. "It's not funny!"

"Unfortunately, little dragon," Jaehaerys says direly as he bites back his own grin, "it is, very much so."

Daenerys blinks, forgetting she is supposed to be very upset. "Why?"

"You're the big sister now, little dragon," Alysanne soothes. "Big sisters don't make baby dragons cry."

Daenerys claps her hands over her mouth until Aemon stops squalling. It doesn't take long, for he latches onto Alysanne's breast with no trouble at all. Daenerys pulls a face but looks on in morbid fascination. It does not take her long to muster up the courage to crawl up onto the bed too. Jaehaerys grins over her head as he helps her up.

Daenerys frowns critically down at the red, wrinkled thing in her mother's arms. Aemon mewls in protest when she pokes his chin. "Where's his shell?"

"Dragons don't hatch, Daenerys," Alysanne explains patiently, for the thousandth time since she announced Daenerys was to be a big sister. "They're born the same as any other babe."

"Be a dragon," Daenerys demands her baby brother.

"Can _you _be a dragon yet?" their father retorts.

"No, Papa. Not yet." After a pout Daenerys juts out her chin defiantly. "But I will be one day, really soon."

"Of course," Alysanne demurs. Her and Jae's father was only three when he found his fire. Why can't their firstborn be just as prodigious?

_"Then _can I have a little sister?"

Jaehaerys tries smiling at his sister. With their latest effort only hours old, she scowls grumpily back. "...We'll see, princess."

Aemon grows into a striking babe, with lilac eyes and hair like white gold. He soon discovers his favorite word.

_"I'm _a big enough girl to go flying all by myself on papa, Aemon, but you need someone to hold you!"

"Why?"

"Because you're a baby that can't hold on by yourself yet. So we have to tie you onto Papa because Mama can't ride with us right now."

"Why?"

"Because she gave up her wings for now to give us our baby sister."

"Why?"

"Because one little brother is all I can take, Aemon."

When baby Baelon is born instead, Daenerys pouts. Aemon is too guileless to hide his grin that no stupid girl will steal _his _big sister away, but she is too upset to notice. Over their heads Alysanne and Jaehaerys grin at each other.

In the end Daenerys is relieved for a second brother. Aemon, now a big brother himself, stops whacking her with tree branch swords so that Baelon can hit him instead. He's too little to fight properly yet, so Baelon lets him win like a good big brother. Daenerys puts her foot down on them fighting for first turns at dragon rides. She can only carry one of them at a time. Aemon might be her oldest brother, her future husband, but Baelon is the baby. For now he gets to go first, because Aemon will have Daenerys the rest of their lives.

But Aemon isn't upset. Daenerys isn't a real dragon yet, not like their parents. Until she finds her own fire she can only put on a leather cloak and play pretend, running and spinning them around the nursery. His sister has already promised him the first _real _ride on her back when she's big and strong enough.

She makes her vow her last night in the nursery, before she moves into a room all her own. It cheers Aemon up enough to stop his crying. He promises to himself it's the last time he will ever cry. He's a prince and a dragon. Tears are for little babies like Baelon.

Aemon doesn't keep his promise very long. Within two days, the Shivers steal his sister. First she's too sick and then it's too late for goodbyes.

No one lets Aemon attend the funeral. Papa forbids it in a voice that growls like thunder. Mama has never left Daenerys' side since she got sick. The servants keep Aemon locked up with Baelon. Even if he's the future king now no one obeys him. They insist he can't get sick like Daenerys, though all Aemon wants to be is where she is.

Only once does Daenerys fly all on her own, when their parents scatter her ashes to the winds.

The gods laugh at Aemon. Early in the year they take Daenerys to grant him a new one at the end. Some whisper that Alyssa is the lost princess returned, but Aemon knows they're blind. Daenerys had hair like silver gold and eyes like amethysts. Alyssa is dirty blonde, one eye mismatched green.

Aemon ignores Alyssa those first few years, when the ache for Daenerys is strongest. That's why he has Baelon, to spar and play with now that their big sister is gone. At first it's easy to avoid the baby penned up in the nursery. Then she grows big enough to climb up trees after them, large enough for her wooden sword to hurt when she whacks it against their shins. Those that whisper she'll be Aemon's bride one day ignore how she trails stubbornly after Baelon instead.

Aemon is all too happy to let Alyssa have him. _His _princess died a long time ago. She'll have no replacement.

Besides, for all the adults insist otherwise, Alyssa is just another baby brother.

* * *

Aemon is seven years old when he is named Prince of Dragonstone. He's the oldest child now so the island is all his. A part of him stubbornly whispers it should belong to Daenerys, that it should be hers to share with him, but the voice is quieter today than it was two years ago.

For all Aemon is now a future king he _still _can't choose who he sits next to. He wants Baelon by his side or at the very least Uncle Boremund, with his booming laugh and miniature mace, because he is _ten _and now is lord of all the stormlands, with Lord Rogar dead some moons ago. Grandmother rules for him but that doesn't stop Uncle Boremund of boasting of all the decisions he has already helped contribute to.

Instead Mother insists he sit next Jocelyn Baratheon. Aemon can't think of her as his aunt. She's only a year older than him him, though far taller than he is, with thick black hair. She sits primly next to him. Her expression is the polite, distant one Grandmother makes when Lord Rogar rambles on about foolish things.

Bored stiff by the speeches and ceremonies passing over his head, for all he is the guest of honor, Aemon makes it his mission to make Jocelyn laugh. He thinks she hasn't since before Lord Rogar died, after moons of fighting the injuries he received out on the Dornish Marches.

"We're lucky my little sister isn't here," he whispers conspiratorially to her, "or something would be on fire by now."

Jocelyn's dark eyes go very wide. Up close he can see they're a blue deep as the midnight sky. "Alyssa is _two, _isn't she? Even your grandfather was three when he found his wings."

"Oh, Alyssa doesn't have wings yet, just a very strong arm. When she's at the table we can't have any candles out. She likes throwing rolls at them too much."

Jocelyn giggles. "One of my cousins isn't much older. We can't trust her with porridge anymore. Everyone winds up washing it out of their hair."

Aemon grins back. "Alyssa tried porridge once. Only once, because every other bowl she gets is thrown up to the rafters..."

The night passes in a blur. Jocelyn has a small army of Baratheon cousins, each a miniature storm. But Baelon and Alyssa are both dragons, so of course Aemon has enough horror stories to keep up with her.

Over their heads Mother and Grandmother exchange one of their secret, all-knowing smiles. Having grown up with them Aemon pays it no mind. They are as much a mystery to him as the stars above, simply a fact of life.

Some days later, when they must all sail from Dragonstone, Jocelyn doesn't set forth for Storm's End with Grandmother and Uncle Boremund. She returns to King's Landing with them, because Mother and Grandmother think it's a grand idea for Jocelyn to better know her royal half-siblings. Aemon is overjoyed to have her.

Their Baratheon aunt isn't one for running and roughhousing like Daenerys. Instead she weaves stories like some of Mother's ladies do tapestries. Having grown up on only dragon stories of Old Valyria, even Aemon finds himself waiting with bated breath when Elenei turns aside the divine wrath of her sire and one some Durran slays the King of Giants. Dragon stories are all about fire and blood. Those of the stormlords have much more adventure and backstabbing.

Jocelyn also has an etched deck of cards made all the way in Lys. She knows a thousand and one games with them. She lets Alyssa and Baelon win some, but Aemon is close to her age. On him she holds nothing back.

When their mothers announce their intentions to betroth them some years later, Jocelyn Baratheon is a maid of fourteen and near six feet tall. Aemon is thirteen and five inches shorter.

Neither of them protest the prospect of eternal matrimony. Jocelyn bites back a grin at the announcement. Aemon, who has long prayed for and expected the same, can't bring himself to share in her excitement. His long-practiced smiles of course feel the court but not those closest to him. Mother's all-knowing gaze bores into the back of his head when Jocelyn excuses him with her to speak in private. Only affable Ser Lucamore Strong follows to serve as chaperone.

"Are you nervous, Aemon, or something else entirely?" Jocelyn manages a small, sick smile. "Our marriage might be years away if we don't feel ready for it. On that day you'll most certainly at least be able to look me in the eye, if a tall wife is what worries you."

"Not in the slightest!" he blurts out immediately. "You could grow a foot more and me not an inch more, and I'd never love you less. It's just..." He swallows thickly. "You might never fly, Jocelyn, not like I should be able to carry you. You might never be queen at all, if Baelon or Alyssa find their fire first. _If _I'm a dragon at all."

His parents had been six and eight when they proved themselves dragons, and Grandfather Aenys only _three. _Not a single one of Aemon's siblings has shifted yet. For all he is the nominal heir Aemon has no doubt the realm would turn against him if Baelon or, gods forbid _Vaegon, _woke where he did not. Every year that passes for him the whispers of his uncle, Aegon the Uncrowned, the Dragon Too Late, grow harder for Father to stifle.

"Oh, you absolute idiot," Jocelyn sighs. "I'm not marrying a crown or a dragon. I'm marrying _you, _the big brother with an army of siblings, the prince who can't play cards to save his life."

Their first kiss is quick and clumsy, all Jocelyn mashing her face against his. Aemon gapes and lets her in. Something hot and wonderful wakes in him, and he wonders if tonight is when he finally flies.

Aemon flushes hotly when he realizes only one part of him has gotten the message. Jocelyn flinches back, worrying at the strands of hair that have escaped her plait.

Ser Lucamore, back turned to them, never looks away from the tapestry before him. "What a lovely scene," he muses aloud. "Why have I never taken the time to admire such beauty before?"

"Yes," Aemon agrees faintly, staring heroically at the threads of color as Jocelyn at last makes her return to the feast. "Absolutely beautiful."

* * *

Two years later, Dragonstone at last gains a princess when Aemon and Jocelyn are wed.

Once King's Landing had two great septs, astride both Visenya's Hill and the Hill of Rhaenys. But the Sept of Remembrance has long been razed, the Dragonkeep raised in its place so that Maegor might have had a fortress befitting his true bestial form. The Dragonsept raised by a High Septon in the Conqueror's time is dwarfed by both it and the Red Keep, but upon Visenya's Hill still towers above the lesser shrines of the city.

Aemon and Jocelyn's wedding is said to be even grander than the Golden Wedding between her parents twenty years before, in a sept dripping with opulence and two complete keeps to host the endless guests and celebrations. The day is extravagant, knowing no problems but those logistical problems expected of feeding and housing so many people at once.

Perhaps it helps Jocelyn is but Aemon's half-aunt instead of a full sister, that they are born of different houses and little physical similarity. Their smallfolk celebrate with them and do not huddle to each other with dark whispers of incest and abominations.

At fifteen Aemon is _almost _tall enough to look his bride in the eye. What chafes him is the iron fact his feet are bound to earth, that his arms might never become wings to raise Jocelyn high above the city, so that everyone might behold the dragon and his bride. Aemon is no dragon at all.

Yet Jocelyn never darkens with disappointment or glance enviously up where the Bronze King and his Good Queen circle above the revelry to remind the realm of the legacy their son springs from. Her eyes are only for him. So are her hands, stealing under the table during the feast to drive him away from his dark thoughts and into another a realm entirely.

That night they soar together in mind and spirit, to lofty heights Aemon cannot lift them to. For now her arms and her bliss are enough, so he swallow his resentment and settles at her side, conceding to all the gods have granted him.

But Aemon is born of dragons. In him the fire stirs and refuses to settle. Two years later at a tourney in Duskendale. His blood sings when he beats down all other squires in the list, claims the prize from his own brother. So does he excel in the lists. Aemon has trained only upon horses of the royal stables, accustomed to the birth to the scent of dragon upon their riders. They carry him confidently to victories while other coursers balk at the power of his blood.

When his skill earns him a knighthood, Aemon's spirit soars higher and then higher still, to heights no other could carry him. Only as a knight, standing tall in his own prowess rather than in the shadows of his predecessors, does he _understand._

Ser Ryam Redwyne is sworn to the Kingsguard, no stranger to dragons. When he pulls his sword from Aemon's shoulders, his eyes widen at the heat even Aemon cannot yet sense. His quick thinking and the wide open tourney grounds prevent Aemon's first fire from causing more damage than a few minor burns and a scorched patch of dirt.

The crowd gawks back at the dragon in the tourney grounds where there had not been one before. The dragon gawks back. He's still gawking when they erupt into cheers.

Father is willing to declare it a sign of the Seven, declaring his true heir at last. It is mother who sweetly suggests Aemon is merely revealing his true nature at long last, who implies her son is merely revealing a secret long known to his family, that certainly he has been a dragon since long before becoming a grown knight of seventeen.

So Aemon draws himself draws himself proudly and pretends too. Despite the unfamiliarity of this form he has long witnessed his parents like this, has felt their muscles move beneath him when they carried him as passenger. He swaggers forward slow, basking in the crowd's adoration so he won't trip over his own tail in his haste. He brushes off pointed comments that his eyes were violet up until that very morning, convinces all he can his eyes have surely been sunny gold for years now. They've just deluded themselves into thinking otherwise.

From Duskendale Alysanne sails forth with her son and good-daughter to Dragonstone, to intimately enjoy their company while they establish their own household on the island and Jaehaerys proceeds with his grand court and their younger children back to the capital. The Conciliator ensures songs of the Red Prince spread far and wide, and all sneers of Aemon the Late stamped down before they truly take root.

Dragonstone is as private a retreat a dragon can hope for. Beneath his mother's tutelage Aemon learns to fly and master his flame, skills that should have been his years ago.

For all Dragonstone has long been declared his domain, Aemon is never allowed to fly except beneath his mother's watchful eye. Considering the dark shadow that hounds his every move, Aemon does not protest beneath Alysanne's steely eye.

Aemon has never exchanged a word his Cousin Aerea, has never the seen the face she was born to. He was a babe when she flew off to Valyria and came back... changed. She is black as obsidian and far closer to his mother's size than his relative puniness. Her hide is gouged with red, violent scars from the beasts of Valyria and from frequent fights with her mother, for Aunt Rhaena has never given up on reaching through to the lost little girl she believes somewhere beneath the scales.

Aemon sees only the molten eyes that follow his first wavering flights like a hawk watches young rabbits. She retreats some when he becomes more confident of his abilities, but he stays a respectful distance from the back of the Dragonmont where she lairs. He is not like Aunt Rhaena, to provoke her incessantly.

As Prince of Dragonstone Aemon helps manage the spiked roofs and dumping of rancid scents that discourages Cousin Aerea from preying upon the villages as she does their flocks, ensure the Dragonguard keep the shepherds far down the volcano's slopes. From his own coffers he pays the traditional amounts for sheep and goats taken, for quiet funerals and retrieval of the bones that can be reached. Not even he can silence the hisses of 'Cannibal.'

When Aemon fully masters himself he and Jocelyn take their second marriage in the traditional Valyrian rite. Her gown is rich gold, black, and red, complimenting the colors of his house and hers, that of his crimson scales and golden wings. They fly seven times around the lower portion of Dragonstone and make love beneath an open sky, upon the Stone Drum. Cousin Aerea never swoops that close to the castle, and so she remains only a distant shadow in his mind.

Within two years of him finding his fire, do Aemon and Jocelyn at least conceive their first child. Rhaenys takes near two days to be born. Jocelyn survives the birthing bed that could not take her mother, but the maester solemnly warns them trying for another child may kill her.

Aemon is not a greedy man. Their Rhaenys is a blessed child, born on the seventh day of the seventh moon. She is born clever and capable, fierce and fearless. Long before her pale violet eyes spring up orange Aemon knows her a born dragon, a queen to be. By Andal and Valyrian law, Rhaenys is his undisputed heir and wholeheartedly worthy of the title.

* * *

Fast as Corlys Velaryon's fleet may be, a dragon is far faster. Not even for his good-son can Aemon hold himself back from landing first. The Red Prince is a few years shy of forty, still in his prime, large enough to raze a small fleet all on his own. And he is no stranger to doing so, for before Myrish pirates threatened Tarth he, Baelon, and their sire won a war without losing a single man when they burned Morion Martell's fleet.

Aemon has every right to be confident, every right to rush this latest little war to its inevitable conclusion. Rhaenys has announced her first pregnancy after weeks of stewing without her wings. He wants to welcome his first grandchild into this world and not be stuck on Tarth flushing out pirates like rats.

Keen dragon eyes have no trouble sighting Lord Tarth's camp in the central islands. Beneath his shadow the men hastily clear room for him to land. In dragon form one his age might fear no man on the battlefield, but Aemon transforms without fear. His other form is shit at communication. The quicker he picks Lord Tarth for information, the sooner he and Corlys might sail home to their family after burning out the Myrish. Armed his own shed scales of red and gold, standing among allies, a dragon prince has nothing to fear.

Tarth is a beautiful island, its interior rugged and wild as its peoples cleave to the coasts. Engrossed in conversation and too arrogant for his own good, even a dragon might miss two scouts on higher ground.

Perhaps they aim for Cameron Tarth, who stands at the Red Prince's side, and simply miss. Perhaps they recognize the dragon before them and do not realize the true consequences of their recklessness.

One moment the Red Prince stands tall and proud. The next he falls back as a Myrish cross bolt blooms in his throat.

In their shock men blunder away from the dragon's ineffable wrath. Lord Tarth, who is not so foolish, falls at his prince's side and screams for a maester, for him to transform, to do _something._

Aemon Targaryen cannot hear him. The Prince of Dragonstone dies moments later, choking on his own blood, golden eyes bewildered and terrified until their spark fades forever.

The Gold Prince makes no such mistake. He falls upon Tarth and its invaders as only a beast, for he needs no words to teach them the true meaning of fire and blood.

Tarth is a wet and fertile isle. It recovers. Eventually.


	2. Baelon the Brave

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The life of Baelon Targaryen, called the Brave.

"Little prince, if I may ask, _what in the seven fucking hells were you thinking!?"_

Baelon pouts and wriggles defiantly, but stupid Ser Samgood has a grip like iron. "Please, ser. I was just going for a dip in the Dragonmont?"

"A dip in the..." The knight's disbelieving gaze flicks up to the smoldering top of the volcano, still so far out of reach. Baelon's been climbing to it forever._ "Why?"_

Baelon rolls his eyes. "Well, where else would I find my fire? Dragons are born on the Dragonmont. Cousin Aerea does and she's all dragon now. And I can't turn back now, Ser Samgood. I'll be in more trouble if sneaking out and dressing up like a dragonseed were all for nothing."

The knight gapes long and hard at him. For a moment Baelon hopes he's convinced. Then Ser Samgood shakes his head in utter confusion. "Little prince, you're either the bravest boy alive or the maddest."

Baelon bristles. "Good ser, dragons can only be brave."

Dragons like his family, at least. Visenya and Maegor were the other kind, but they're both dead and their line with them.

The Kingsguard chortles long and hard at this, but still drags him back to the castle to be chewed out by his parents. Both Mother and Father are dragons. They are great and terrible even in human form, not spitting out sparks for they can still make the walls shake with their anger.

At least Baelon is not alone in his suffering. Aemon stands beside him with singed eyebrows and hacked off hair where the burnt bits got sheared off. Baelon sticks his tongue out at him, because he is stupid for thinking normal fire could ever make a dragon. Aemon elbows him below the belt, for he never fights fair. Baelon's angry howl is drowned out by the bellows of their parents.

Aemon is the oldest after Daenerys, the future king and Prince of Dragonstone. For all he's two years older Baelon can still keep up with him sparring because he trains all day, because he gets up until he brings his brother down. Can't Baelon do something first for once, be the first dragon of their generation if everything must be Aemon's?

Aemon gets another two weeks tacked onto her punishment. So does Baelon, for goading his big brother so.

Daenerys rolls her eyes and calls them both idiots. It's not Baelon's fault she's as much a dragon inside as he and Aemon are, but without her confidence. Daenerys knows the skies to one day be hers and so awaits the day. Her brothers must fight for it, tooth and nail.

That is how Baelon wakes up with shaved eyebrows one morning while Daenerys swears up and down Aemon remained in her bed like a good little prince who just wanted his big sister's company.

Of course that's the end of their latest fight. Even Baelon can grudgingly concede Aemon beat him fair and square. At least by Targaryen standards, for dragons never hold back.

* * *

Aemon, the idiot, nears sets all of Duskendale on fire when he transforms the first time. Then he has to swagger back to the pavilion without tripping over his own tail while Baelon and Alyssa watch on in breathless envy.

When the shock to fade Alyssa is the first to find her voice. She squares her shoulders, mismatched eyes blazing up at him in challenge. "I'm next."

"Like seven hells you are," he hisses.

She juts her chin up. "I am. Then I get to carry you at our wedding like Aunt Rhaena did Uncle Aegon, while you just sit and look pretty."

Baelon splutters because he can't decide which part of that is most insulting. He's still searching for a retort when Alyssa flounces off.

With Aemon for reference, Baelon enters the tourney at Old Oak the following year as a mystery knight, so no one will hold back in their challenge. Dragons must strain for the sky and brave the fire. Their wings are not simply given to them by right of birth.

Of course Alyssa knows it's him beneath the Silver Fool's helm. Even if she mocks him by pretending to moon all over him, he wears her favor with the intent to make her eat it later. On his own he unhorses an Ashford and two Fossoway knights, defeats Lord Rowan and the Oakheart heir. When Ser Rickard Redwyne knocks him from his mount and unmasks his shame before the crowd, Baelon's face surely burns hot enough to melt his armor.

His rage and humiliation flush into embarrassment when Ser Rickard knights him on the spot.

His victory hollow, Baelon stews all through the following feast. He burns beneath the pitying looks sent to him by his parents, Aemon and his good-sister Jocelyn, who all know what he intended to happen on that tourney field. Alyssa's quiet congratulations to him is the final straw. That very night he gallops for King's Landing, followed only by a small retinue. He is a knight and man grown, so no one stops him.

After a hard ride for home Baelon has every intention of sailing to Dragonstone. When he actually reaches the city walls his mood sours when he remembers Dragonstone is Aemon's domain, that whatever he manages there still be shadowed.

At last his gaze falls upon the Dragonkeep. Maegor the Cruel raised it as a palace for dragons alone, for the brood he had intended to sire on his brides. Baelon has always derided it as the Dragonpit. For its size the Dragonkeep is dark and dank. The chambers befitting dragons are empty and cavernous, the little side quarters for their servants luxurious in comparison. There is good reason why Aemon and his parents prefer the Red Keep, even though only the Great Hall can hold them in their scales.

The stairs to the top are narrow and treacherous, scarce used as true dragons simply prefer landing in the Dragonkeep's grand yard.

"Here is far enough," Baelon growls at at the base of the stairs.

Ser Pate frowns at him. "Are you certain, my prince?"

Baelon snarls in his face, remembering the last Kingsguard to keep him from his fate. "You are a woodcock, good ser, not a duckling. Even with your eyes you should still be capable of watching me from here."

Ser Pate hesitates long and hard before his spirit breaks. For as long as he's worn that white cloak he is still baseborn. Baelon is a prince, a knighted man grown. At last the man bows his head and assents to abetting what he believes suicide.

Baelon climbs until his legs and lungs burn. Every step brings him closer to the sky. His armor and fine clothes weigh him down and so are carelessly discarded.

_If I look back I am lost._

Baelon sprints for the parapet. He clears it in a running leap, leaving behind the earth that has pinned him for so long.

He falls for only a heartbeat, before he _flies. _His wings catch him as no arms ever could, lifting him higher and then higher still.

Baelon bellows his triumph to the city, most especially to Pate the Woodcock's gaping face. He circles the capital seven times in celebration.

And many more times after that, because all the years riding astride his parents have never actually taught him how to _land._

* * *

For all his gloating Baelon never gets to carry Alyssa. They are wide side by side in the Dragonsept, resplendent in dragonscale. Baelon scarce wears anything else these days, for it and Valyrian steel are the only materials that shift with him. Alyssa's gown shimmers wine-dark while their mother's is like starlight. Their wedding was delayed weeks for its creation, for maids to painstakingly piece her first shed scales into the train.

Baelon drapes his dragon cloak over her shoulders, to forever and always bind them both to the family of fire, the last dragonlords in all the world. It is not the one their grandmother used when she wed their grandfather, the same passed down to their Aunt Jocelyn when she wed Aemon. It is brand new, woven just for the occasion, and lasts only as long as the ceremony and procession down the aisle.

Outside, in the square cleared by Kingsguard and gold cloaks, bride and groom give themselves to the fire. Gold and wine-red flames envelop them like lovers.

For his scales Baelon is called the Gold Prince, for his color is lighter and more pure than his father's bronze. Alyssa is wine-dark, her scales shimmering violet or deep crimson when the sun strikes them. One of her eyes is deep red. The other, still its stubborn human green, winks at him.

Baelon growls at the challenge but she's still the first into the air.

She doesn't beat him for very long. Baelon takes more after their mother, slender and swift, while Alyssa is built for power. Not even a dragon a full year, she's already his size. It rankles his pride that one day soon she might outgrow him entirely.

Above the eyes of the city they dance and wheel in shimmering scales and jets of flame. The crowd cheers and laughs in awe, for the last dragon wedding above their skies had been decades ago, when Maegor and Rhaena had near killed each other in a flight more fight than foreplay.

They consummate their marriage atop the Dragonkeep, in the fields outside the city and damn near Duskendale's walls. When they are finally persuaded to fly back to the Red Keep for their wedding feast, they make it through half the first course before Alyssa drags him to the closest available chamber. It is joked their 'union' was seen away far as Duskendale, and that men all the way on Crackclaw heard it.

In that first blissful year their hours together are often spent on the wing, side by side as they parade around the realm and tease the Cannibal in her den by veering so close. Those hours not spent in scales are spent skin to skin, in private chambers if they make it and stables and linen closets if they can't.

There is no child that year, no matter how much the realm jokes they've done enough trying to make ten of them. Alyssa doesn't want when then, when her wings are still so new. No seed can take root when she transforms so frequently. There are days when Baelon and his bride don't transform at all, curled up in the Dragonkeep or high enough on Dragonstone their guards can't bother them.

Only months later can Baelon persuade her to settle down enough for one. Even while she grows round with their firstborn she still rides him hard, in the air and in bed. Alyssa misses the sky so much Baelon flies more those moons than they ever did together.

Nine days after Viserys is born of course she's back in the air again. Baelon jeers at the servants that think to go above her head, when she orders them to bind their babe in his swaddling clothes to her chest.

"We are dragons," he retorts with a flash of teeth. "Can my wife not fly with our son as our mother once did with us?"

Bound in a leather harness, Viserys coos through his first flight before the wing-beats put him to sleep. To Baelon's dismay it becomes the only thing that _does _soothe him. When his wife his away and their mother not so indulgent, it is _he_ that must wear the harness and fly a few laps around King's Landing, lest Viserys bring down the Red Keep with his squalling.

When Daemon is born some years later, for him the flights are not so soothing. He laughs and babbles the whole way through. When he feels either Baelon or Alyssa turning back for the Red Keep, he erupts into furious squalling until Alyssa (it is always Alyssa) finds a way to distract him from his fury.

For all Alyssa near climbs the walls during her pregnancies she bursts with pride for gentle Viserys, who excels in his lessons, and bold little Daemon that climbs over a squirrel in the same godswood and secret passages they themselves once wrecked havoc in.

Daemon is but too when Alyssa drags him into bed with more than another romp in mind. "We have our heir and our spare," he murmurs halfheartedly as she nips at his ear. "Don't let me keep you from the skies anymore if you desire."

Alyssa laughs derisively. "Please, Baelon. Viserys and Daemon make two dragons. Our parents made three. I want a whole damn army!"

For all their boys are so different, Baelon rests easily in Alyssa's confidence they both are dragons. He feels no such assurance when Aegon comes all those moons later, in a labor that lasted longer than any battle Baelon ever participated in. Even Alyssa, pale and drawn, cannot muster up the same spark in her smile when she declares Aegon to be not only their third son, but their third little dragon.

Viserys and Daemon were less than two weeks old when she each took them flying the first time. Aegon, pale and delicate as porcelain, passes each day in his cradle or in the arms of his parents, who pray their warmth and breath are all the fire he needs to ignite his own.

Aegon flies once, just shy of his first name day. He lies cold and still in the harness that once carried his brothers, no matter how close Alyssa cradles him to his heart.

They and their family grant him to the pyre, then to the desolate darkness of Dragonstone's catacombs.

Alyssa speaks no more of armies after that.

Baelon prays to the Seven every night to thank them for their two healthy dragons and a wife who eventually recovers from her grief, and never resents his blessings.

* * *

With only his father and brother Baelon the Brave end a war without losing a single man. Morion Martell's fleet burns before it even can make landfall and takes the Prince of Dorne and so many more thorns in their sides with it. From up above the ships bob like wooden toys. The screams die quick, as flames of gold and bronze consume them. The army witnessing the dragons from Cape Wrath call it the greatest spectacle they've ever seen, their dragonlords burning the damned Dornishmen not even the Conqueror could bow.

Baelon soars with pride. The rapturous celebration they return to help drown out the screams from his head, for the dead were only Dornish, out to raid and raze their coasts.

Then comes the raven from Tarth. Aemon does not die in glorious battle like Rhaenys or Aegon the Uncrowned before him. The eldest son of Jaehaerys and Alysanne, the future king, is brought down by an ignominious arrow to the throat. He does not even die a dragon.

Baelon's blood rises, hotter than it ever did when. He gives himself to the fire.

Where the Red Prince fell without slaying a single Myrmen, the Gold Prince gives no quarter. They die by the dozens and then by the hundreds as he burns them from their lairs. Baelon never shifts on Tarth, no matter how thick or loyal his protection. No dragon can be killed by a single arrow or ambushed in his sleep. He leaves lesser men to slaughter those pirates left and retrieve the survivors.

The Myrish were not men, not truly. They were exiles, the allies of pirate kings, rapists and slavers.

He dreams of their screams and shouts for their mothers. He dreams of burning hair and a heat that melts the eyeballs from their sockets.

It is not the rainy season on Tarth. The fickle winds spread his flame beyond the pirate dens. His inferno finds ready kindling in the dry, thick forests.

Yet the rains will inevitably return. Tarth is a wet, fertile island far more dependent on its seas than its interior. It will recover.

Eventually.

Baelon out-flies the retinue sent to see him home. He descends into King's Landing in the dead of night, when the dark hides his golden scales. The thought of this city applauding him for Tarth nearly sends him plummeting for earth.

Alyssa awaits him at the Dragonkeep. Fifteen years after their marriage she looms larger than him. Patiently she braces in the form he need not fear injuring for rage and grief to seize him, as she roared and tore into solid stone after the gods took their Aegon.

Baelon stands numb. He waits for the rage, the dark tide of vindication he has wanted to rush over him since Aemon died.

Pressure builds up in his chest until he can contain it no longer. The fire never comes. It escapes him as a thunderous moan, low and deep and tortured.

Alyssa stares. After a lifetime she creeps closer to his side.

Somewhere down the line moans become screams and then sobs. Baelon never remembers transforming back, only weeping into his wife's arms when she blearily realizes it is not her wings he seeks.

"I burned a thousand of them, Alys, and gods know how many innocents with them. I burned the whole damn island, but it will not bring him back."

Alyssa has never been one for words. There is nothing she can say, and so she says nothing. She is his rock, steady and silent.

Baelon does not the Dragonkeep those first few weeks, when the rage and the grief ride so high they explode out him as they please. In one moment he is a beast that throws fire as he can't curses and in the next a man silent and empty on the floor, a burnt-out husk until the next wave dredges itself free. Alyssa is there for him when she can be and their mother oft when she can't. But she is his sister-wife, his voice in court when he can't trust his own and a sturdy mother to their sons. Even in his darkest hour the realm cannot let him rest.

When Baelon learns he has been named Prince of Dragonstone in his niece's stead, he expects _something. _Vindication at emerging from Aemon's shadow or outrage Rhaenys has been robbed of both her father and her birthright.

He feels nothing. For all he knows he must, he cannot. He wishes only sleep.

"The Iron Throne wears down the strong, Baelon," Alyssa declares in the face of his weary silence. "But it kills the weak."

Only the Conqueror escaped raising the throne unscathed, at the cost of only his beloved Rhaenys. The throne has killed their grandfather, and Aegon the Uncrowned after him. His ambitions and Maegor's had near killed their Aunt Rhaena, were at least partially to blame for the daughter that had become her downfall. Even their own parents, so capable and beloved, are shadows of themselves now, as Baelon has become since Tarth.

Rhaenys Targaryen is only eighteen. She is round with a child that keeps her from transforming, will lose many potential years in scales for every babe she wants thereafter. Jaehaerys must fear losing her as he lost Aemon. This is why he has nominated his second son, so she and her unborn child will not be ground down like Rhaena and her twins before them. Why he stands tall against the outrage of Aunt Jocelyn and Uncle Boremund, the wrath of his own sister-wife.

Baelon and Alyssa stand with their sire. In these times it seems few else of their family will. Blackfyre becomes _his _burden. The Iron Throne is his to bear, so it will not devour Rhaenys as it has her father and grandfather.

It is for her sake. Alyssa insists they are the true heirs by the Valyrian rites, nominated by the eldest dragon alive as in turn they will one day be the oldest dragons alive, with two sons of their own, far more capable than a niece half their size.

As spare Baelon was trained in Aemon's shadow. He keeps Dragonstone from falling apart under the sudden change in succession. As the years pass by and the grief recedes, he need not lean so heavily on Alyssa to rule in his stead.

No sooner does Baelon master Dragonstone and keeping the Cannibal at bay must he abandon them for court. The Wise King needs an enforcer, strong and capable, in his old age to keep him abreast of a demanding realm. Jaehaerys rules alone, since Alysanne's 'temporary' retirement to Dragonstone drags on year after year.

His mother never acknowledges his title as Prince of Dragonstone, yet has only ever raged at his sire when she could have demanded Baelon himself to denounce the decision. Their time together is spent discussing charities and his sons, as if the wider realm does not exist at all.

Only eight years after Aemon does his mother smile at him, weary as she if has endured a thousand years of heartbreak. "You will be a great king, greater than even your father."

Baelon chokes back his tears, for dragons do not weep, as he raises an icy hand to kiss reverently. "I will try, Mother, gods will I try."

They are his mother's last words to him, a peace attempt tangled in weary surrender and back-handed compliments. In her eyes a rock might be a better king than her brother, for rocks cannot alter the whole succession on a whim.

By gods will Baelon at least heal the rift Aemon's death wrenched in their hearts. If he cannot name Rhaenys or her boy heir above Viserys he shall bind lines together in marriage, to tie them both the throne that kills all who claim it. Laenor or Laena will wed back into the royal line, once Baelon can be damn sure of Viserys' own heir.

But precocious little Rhaenyra is still little more than a babe, her potential brothers yet unborn, and Baelon still only the heir apparent.

He has years yet, until the realm's future grows murky.

* * *

For near the last decade Alyssa has pushed Baelon into flying with her, in fucking her on the wing. Beyond travel and royal obligations she does not see him in his scales otherwise, unless his appetite finally moves him to eat as a dragon should. Even tempting him into her bed has become more irritation than game.

Her brother simply does not have much fire left in him these days, no matter how many times she's tried to spark it again. Duty divides them at first, when Father requires him in the capital while Dragonstone demands the attention of its princess, if not its prince. Only when she can trust Viserys and Aemma with the tediousness of every day rule can she return to his side, to support him as a sister must.

Since Mother's death their Father's good days are few and far between. When the king is once more coherent Alyssa suggests a hunt, to focus Baelon on the here and now rather than a future looming closer by the day.

Baelon agrees more for her sake than his own. They hunt astride their coursers, for the kingswood is too heavily forested for anything larger than a hawk to hunt on the wing.

Alyssa is happy as she can be these days. She teases Baelon into racing her. She wins, of course, but the chase excites him as she hopes it would. In his tent they fuck for the this time since their mother died a year ago. They fill the forest with their screams and proceed to shame much of their retinue that a couple old enough to be their parents have a livelier marriage than any of them shall ever hope to have.

Alyssa's nails are carving a familiar path in his back when Baelon bucks violently beneath her, his growl one of repressed pain than desire. She eases gingerly off him.

"What is it?" she murmurs as his hand flies to his side, right where her knee had been enthusiastically digging into his belly.

"Nothing, sweet sister," he says with a tight smile. "Only a stitch in my side."

Alyssa rolls her eyes. "You're growing old and fat, brother mine. You should be getting proper exercise on the wing so you're not winded in bed."

He flashes his teeth up at her. "Oh, I'll show you winded!"

They rebury themselves in each other. Baelon finishes first, heaving wearily as he slides into sleep. Alyssa can't tear her eyes away from him. The faint pulse of dissatisfaction is nothing new. Her brother has not been able to properly fill her void for years.

The faint, creeping fear that swallows even the last of her arousal is not entirely new. She has not felt it in years, not since she dragged her brother back from the edge after losing Aemon.

Baelon is a shit liar. When he awakes from a restless sleep with the 'stitch' in his side no better, Alyssa orders the hunt around. None deny a dragon, most especially the other dragon present.

When they ride into King's Landing Baelon is feverish but still strong enough to ride. Alyssa thanks the Seven she turned the hunt around when she did, before the city had to witness their future king carried back in a stretcher or on the back of his desperate wife. To her sharp nose he reeks of sickness.

Dragons do not die of sickness. Alyssa clings to this. The Shivers had claimed Daenerys but not her brothers, dragons both for all they had not found their scales.

..._Mundane _sicknesses do not kill dragons, the maesters whisper when Baelon must be confined to a sickbed. They speak of King Aenys, robbed of his fire and dead through either divine wrath or Visenya's. So do they murmur of Aunt Rhaena, sickened by whatever festers in Cousin Aerea that drove even a dragon to lethal fever. Most persistent are those of Visenya. It is an open secret in court that Alyssa Velaryon poisoned her.

Whether from a burst belly or the sinister poisons distilled against dragonlords in the Free Cities, the end result is the same. Within a week of last holding Baelon in passion, she cradles him as his fire grows cold and his eyes glassy, as their last little son did all those long years ago.

So dies the Gold Prince, Baelon the Brave, of a death even more humiliating than their brother's.

After the funeral Alyssa does not transform much anymore. Humans are so tiny and fragile, so unlike a mature dragon in all her size and strength.

Daemon and Viserys are men grown now. They've no need of a mother anymore than the realm needs a queen mother who never ruled in her own right.

Her grandchildren will all be dragons themselves, and so love her no less for it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Canonically Baelon got his name for whacking Balerion on the nose as a toddler. Obviously he needed just something just as stupidly bold to earn him that moniker here.
> 
> We have no canon info on precisely how Baelon took being named Prince of Dragonstone over his niece, save that obviously   
he stuck with it for some reason for another. For all he loved Aemon he grew up in one hell of a shadow.
> 
> We'll be getting into Alyssa's head next, because skewed perspectives and rationalizations are always so fascinating to write.


	3. The Dragon Mother

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The life of Alyssa Targaryen, the Dragon Mother.

At the end of the same year that robs the realm of Princess Daenerys, the Queen bears her second daughter. She weeps when the babe is bundled and delivered into her arms. More than one nursemaid see little Daenerys in the pale thatch of hair and deep blue eyes of this second princess. They murmur the Seven work in mysterious ways and say nothing more when the molten eyes of King Jaehaerys fall upon them.

Where her elder siblings were all granted names far removed from the current monarchy, Alyssa Targaryen is christened for her grandmother, who is now both the Queen Mother and Lady of Storm's End. It is a solid choice as the delicate little daughter grows into herself.

First to fade are her eyes of deep infant blue. Only one settles on violet. The other is emerald green. Her pale, downy baby hair falls out to grow back in as tangled dirty blond, without a trace of shining silver. Her face grows long and skinny, until any resemblance to the lost Daenerys is wishful thinking at best and crass at worst.

Princess Alyssa's unusual appearance goes unremarked, save for passing comments about any similarity between her and Alyssa Velaryon's Massey relatives. All the realm remembers what the Beast King did to Alys Harroway and her 'bastard' child. Those even older remember the rumors the Conqueror burned a courtier alive for daring to suggest Aenys, his one son by his dead and beloved Rhaenys, had been anything but his own flesh and blood.

Her parentage proves itself soon enough. Alyssa rides and climbs, chases after her brothers to whack them with her wooden sword until they duel with her. She shuns gowns and the company of noble girls, for her eyes are entirely for Baelon.

Some of the older, more conservative courtiers quietly fret that the king and queen are spoiling their princess rotten, granting her lofty expectations that will never be filled.

Jaehaerys and Alysanne scoff at them. Alyssa has a dragon's heart, more than even Daenerys had. Her place is in the sky. Jaehaerys even thinks to make a queen of her, but his wife is wiser. Baelon, not Aemon, is meant for her.

At this age Alyssa cares little for crowns. Her eyes are fixed on the sky. She pesters rides from her parents when she can, settles for galloping her pony long and hard when they can't. Horseback riding is the next best thing to dragon riding. Both of course pale in comparison to soaring on her own wings.

When Alyssa is seven she climbs the tallest tree in the godswood and _leaps. _She falls and breaks her leg.

Father yells at her she's lucky she broke her leg and not her gods damned neck. Mother bans her and her brothers from ever climbing again, should any of their younger siblings think to follow her.

Alyssa cares little in the beginning, when she's trapped in bed with only lessons and books to pass the time. Aunt Jocelyn plays cards with her until she pitches the deck across the room. Her wit and riddles, those giggled by the ladies of the court behind closed doors, are _much _more entertaining.

Upon healing Alyssa has little time to miss climbing. Her days intensify when the sparring in the yard becomes true, and not mere indulgences from her brothers. Dark Sister is part of a mated pair, its slender blade meant for a woman's hand. She knows she'll never Aemon's queen, but she's still a dragon, and Baelon her future groom. Dark Sister is _her _right, not Jocelyn's.

Certainly none of her little siblings deserve it either. No matter how large their parents loom, no matter the fire in their souls, Alyssa knows she is the last dragon in her generation. Maegelle follows her most everywhere, but not up trees or into the yard. Where Alyssa stares at sores and broken bones in morbid fascination, her sister rolls up her sleeves to help the maesters and lesser healers. Daella, without a wicked bone in her body, quietly sits with tears pooling in her eyes when Vaegon cruelly mocks her earnest attempts at poetry.

Alyssa must have three times as much fire as her brothers, to fight for her sisters so. She thrashes Vaegon in a duel. Any dragon, any proper boy his age, should at least try rising up to the challenge when humiliated by a woman. Vaegon slinks back to his books and proves no man at all. Let Daella marry her quiet falcon, who at least treats her like a queen when not even her own brother can recognize her worth.

Saera and Viserra at least show some promise. Their first words are _"no" _and _"want_._"_

But then Baelon finally finds his fire and Alyssa forgets her family entirely. She burns at the prospect of being _carried_ in her own damn wedding when she should fly beside him.

So fly she does.

* * *

Alyssa has never been one for gowns. In her wedding gown she proudly marches down the aisle, having never felt so fair or so powerful. It is a masterpiece no human hand can match, for it is sewn of her own first shed scales. Under the stained glass windows of the Dragonsept she shimmers wine-dark, deep red and rich violet. Only a few skilled hands on Dragonstone retain the knowledge of working dragonscale, for their lords are the last of them.

Alyssa has perhaps rubbed or scratched off some scales not yet ready to be lost. She has already lost weeks in mastering this new shape, in the gown's painstaking production. Baelon is her brother, her equal. She can delay this day no longer.

Dark Sister shimmers at her side when they parade down the aisle as true partners at long last. Only Valyrian steel and dragonscale survive the fires of transformation. She wears both with pride when she and Baelon ascend for the first time.

They claim each other with scratches and passionate bites along the neck and jaw. Dragons are not gentle lovers and scream their passions high and proud, so that all the crownlands might hear. When their union eventually carries on into their other forms, Alyssa slaps Baelon's reverent hands away until she can peel off her gown. Like hell is she losing it.

Their first year together is the happiest of Alyssa's life. They share few words with their family, for they are scarcely able to speak except in the language of their bodies. What time isn't spent on the wing, mocking the Cannibal in her den, are spent holed up in their private chambers but leaving no room to the imagination. There is no thought of rule or duty, only each other and the open sky.

Even dragons must eventually come down to earth. When she thinks the fiercest fire purged from her system Alyssa drags Baelon to bed with a greater purpose in mind.

After near limitless freedom Alyssa crawls the walls in her first pregnancy. She plays cards with Aunt Jocelyn and little Rhaenys until ready to tear her hair out. She prays with Maegelle and quietly discusses Old Andal literature with Daella. Most of all she latches onto Baelon. She rides him long and hard, on the wing and in bed when the maesters beg it of her. Gods be damned if she loses this babe, no matter how high he stokes up her fires.

Their son is the first male of his generation, for Aemon and Jocelyn yet have only little Rhaenys. As Alyssa is named for her grandmother, gone now three years, so does she call her boy Viserys, for the uncle Maegor robbed of them. Mother and Father cradle their grandson and shed happy, private tears away from the prying eyes of court. Let their brother live on through their blood. Let his name be redeemed in a true dragon.

For all Viserys is mostly a gentle and biddable babe, he is a dragon in his decision making. He is nine days when Alyssa flies with him for the first time, snug and warm against her chest. From there on flight is the only thing that can lull him to sleep.

Somewhat calmer with a babe at her side, Alyssa considers her younger sisters with older, wiser eyes.

Saera is a lost cause. For all she has a dragon's temper she does not have the will. Every week her whim changes. One week she fancies herself the Princess of Dorne and the next Queen-Beyond-the-Wall. Once she asks to practice with Dark Sister, a blade she cannot even lift. Instead Alyssa indulges her with wooden swords and a path forward to swordsmanship. Saera does not last ten minutes before throwing her blade aside and slinking back to those more easily swayed by her charm.

Viserra is more promising, with a dragon's pride and wild spirit. She is a better rider than even Alyssa, bold and fierce. Alyssa tries harder with her. At least once a year Viserra must be snatched from leaping off the Dragonkeep to break her neck or from the Dragonmont before she climbs high enough to incite the Cannibal. Perhaps she'll wake her own dragon. Perhaps she won't.

Gael is a happy accident on her parents' behalf, a beautiful little girl without a spark in her. With Rhaenys _still _Aemon's only child Alyssa is finally prompted to try for another. Someone has to prove themselves still capable of producing dragons, and by gods will it be her and Baelon.

Daemon is born even wilder than his brother, a dragon through and through. Flying never lulls him to sleep. He laughs and babbles through the whole flight and screams up a storm whenever Alyssa turns for home. Viserys is generous with all toys but his favorites. Of course those are the only ones Daemon wants. Their fights tear up the nursery and leave their nursemaids frazzled wrecks. Every morning they draw lots. The lucky one tends to content little Gael. The unfortunate are left to wrangle dragons.

For all pregnancy exasperates her by gods does she love the end result. Her sons are both dragons. She wants a good two or three more, preferably at least one daughter so she might stop staring after Jocelyn and Rhaenys in loving envy.

Alyssa never doubts her third babe is a dragon, even if it does not tumble as fiercely inside her as its brothers, does not stir up the same frantic need to hunt Baelon down and drag him into dark corners. Their parents are dragons of the gentler sort. Baelon and Alyssa are the fiercer kind, with fire in both forms. They are incapable of conceiving anything _but _more dragons.

With how long and hard she rages to bring her third child into the world, Alyssa feverishly expects a little girl as large and fierce as she was, at last a proper namesake for Daenerys. Her smile falters somewhat at the pale, quiet son cautiously laid into her arms. Her love burns all the fiercer, to pass on its fire.

"Aegon," she declares, for both the Conqueror and the uncle that at least proved himself a dragon in the end. "Viserys and Daemon and Aegon, that's only three. As soon as I'm well, let's make another. I want my damn daughter already."

Baelon's laugh is half a sob when he kisses the crook of her neck. "They call me Baelon the Brave, but you're braver than I could ever be," he breathes into her ear. "I would sooner fight a dozen battles naked than do what you've just done."

Alyssa smirks back, for the only other option is to weep. And dragons have no tears to shed. "You were born for me, Baelon, and I was born to make dragons. You've given me three. I want my whole damn army."

They cannot fly with Aegon as she had his brothers. No, they must wait until he grows hearty and hale, plumps up like a proper babe should. Alyssa cannot try for her fourth child when her third is not yet christened properly.

Aegon finally flies just shy of his first name day. Bundled up so close to her side, Alyssa is almost able to fool herself that he is asleep, lulled off like Viserys was.

He is still warm with her heat when laid in his funeral pyre. This is the last fire they can grant him, so that he'll never know cold or sickness ever again.

Viserys is old enough to miss the brother he was scarce given chance to know, to weep before the pyre. He is not quite eight and little boys are allowed their grief. Daemon, not quite four, watches the flames. They dance silver and bronze, scarlet gold and deep red, for all the dragons that have lent their fire to him. In Daemon's wide, mesmerized eyes they shine brightest.

Dragons do not weep. Alyssa stands in her scales, strong and stoic, while Aunt Jocelyn tenderly collects the ashes of her nephew for the pyre.

The gods have granted her two strong sons, dragons both. That is more than Aunt Jocelyn and Aemon still have. It is more than poor Daella, three years dead from her sole daughter.

Alyssa counts her blessings. She turns away from herself to focus on the future.

That future does not lie in Saera, run off across the narrow sea to escape consequences. Nor does it lie in poor Viserra, who flew only when thrown from a horse's saddle to break her neck upon the street.

Rhaenys Targaryen is thirteen when she proves herself more than merely a dragon's daughter. As the only two female dragons alive of course Alyssa and her mother fixate on her. Alysanne adores her little future queen, always refers to her as such, helps her parents groom her for the throne as she once raised Aemon.

Younger and stronger, the more rigorous training falls to Alyssa. It is she who teaches Rhaenys how to defend herself in the air, against men and dragons alike, in arts passed down since the Doom. Like her grandmother Rhaenys excels in the bow. Alyssa drills her past adequacy in the blade. Where Vaegon crumbled at her lessons Rhaenys snarls and rises to meet expectations, surges forward to exceed them.

Dark Sister is a queen's blade, Blackfyre a king's. With clearly no miracle son forthcoming from Aemon and Jocelyn, Alyssa keenly observes her Viserys is only three years his cousin's younger. Dragon must wed dragon, whenever possible.

Yet dragons have never been ruled by logic alone. Rhaenys dotes upon Viserys as only a younger sibling, patient and indulgent. She is fifteen when she declares to King Jaehaerys her sole intention to wed Corlys Velaryon, and Corlys Velaryon alone.

Cousin Corlys is of the blood himself, of an elder line. His mother was Rhaena Targaryen herself. That still makes him only a dragon's son, for he sails seas where his mother once soared the skies. King Jaehaerys still blesses the match. He is of an older line, a grown and tested lord, son of the sister Jaehaerys arguably usurped.

Alyssa grudgingly concedes her Viserys is only twelve, a sweet boy that has not yet proven himself a dragon. She can't blame Rhaenys for her desires anymore than she can blame herself for fixating on Baelon, when a more ambitious girl must have Aemon. There is still always the hope her boys might prove themselves a second husband if Corlys dies at sea, for he favors long and dangerous expeditions. Or perhaps Daemon might prove the perfect match for a firstborn daughter, or a grandchild of hers a more age appropriate choice. She's not picky.

However, she jealously holds onto Dark Sister, for her own sons and descendants until their blood rejoins the royal branch. Rhaenys may content herself with Blackfyre.

* * *

Exhausted and furious, Alyssa has no more patience left in her when Mother slithers forward to state her case. Baelon has drained her of every ounce of compassion. She has held him for hours, through tears and flames and wordless snarls. She has near killed herself to see her beloved brother not swallowed by Aemon's death. This has only been the first of many battles in the long, long war to come.

"I stand with my father and king," she states, before Mother can so much as open her mouth. Alyssa does her damnedest to keep her tone civil and prays to every god listening that this is the end of it.

Of course it isn't. Mother is a dragon too. "Even when he stands against the law?"

Alyssa flashes her teeth right back. "But, Mother, Father _is _the law. He is not only the head of house, the last dragonlord left alive, but he's a _king. _Surely that makes him the law three times over, for we are Valyrian, and exceptional among Andals."

Or so Alyssa understands. High Valyrian had been fun to learn. Only in the mouths of dragons do the syllables ring right. The arcane complexities of Valyrian law had been far so less so. Succession had favored stronger dragons in leading a Family, with different clauses for gender and skill and proximity to the last dragonlord. It's an utter fucking mess, one she's more than happy to leave Father to muddle through.

Mother's nostrils flare white. "Rhaenys is your niece, Alyssa. Your future queen. She grieves her father and risks her first babe. Must you deprive her of her throne?"

If she had carried Viserys' babe then there would be need to complain at all. Her blood would have ruled regardless.

"Like you deprived Aunt Rhaena and Cousin Aerea of theirs?" she counters, bitterly pleased to see the Good Queen flinch back. "The Iron Throne wears down the strong, Mother. But so does it kill the weak. Isn't that why you and Father took the crown, when Aunt Rhaena and her daughter were in no state to? Why would I throw my own niece to the same fate, when she and her children might continue happily as leaders of Driftmark? Baelon and I are done raising children. That makes two dragons against half, for how can Rhaenys hope to fly when she must think of first securing the succession?"

Alysanne bristles for a true fight, but Alyssa dips her head and walks on. She is no animal to fight against her mother, deluded by her grief and anger so.

Alyssa cares little of her niece when she has a realm to rule. Robbed of Aemon, Dragonstone is hers to guide until Baelon dredges himself from his mourning. She must focus on her sons, teach them of their blood and obligations while Baelon shoulders the work of heir apparent. She sees Dragonstone stabilized, both of her sons proven as proper dragons.

Then it becomes her duty to see her sons wed, the royal blood secured.

Aemma Arryn is the only bride of the blood suitable. She and Viserys are similar in their easy temperaments, both mindful of their duty. They are wed young simply to put off the trouble of a lengthy engagement. Alyssa does not expect grandchildren for years yet. Rhaenyra is... an unexpected surprise, from parents still so young.

Alyssa's peace offering of a match between Laena and Daemon is coldly rebuffed. For all Corlys' brothers cleave to him the prospect of wedding a daughter to a dragon proves tempting. Daemon bristles at the prospect of marrying 'beneath' himself. For all his cousins are of the blood they are distantly so, not even in direct line for Driftmark. Alyssa too concedes it as a match of necessity, for Viserra is unfortunately dead without issue and Saera's blood tainted by Lyseni filth.

Aemma's father, Oswin Arryn, is the one to propose Rhea Royce as an alternative choice. She is heir to Runestone, of a line dating back millennium. In that lineage is a distant drop of Valyrian blood, for House Velaryon has long exerted influence and trading partners down the narrow sea. Daemon leaps at the match, most especially the prospect of his own lands. He sees Rhea as his consort, her claim his by right of marriage.

Alyssa knows him right. It is an unbelievable honor for House Royce, to one day have a dragon as their lord. Perhaps he shall sire such children on Rhea. Perhaps it will simply keep him occupied until a better bride comes along later. Daemon's fire is not be buried beneath all the bronze of House Royce, no matter how much her parents might wish to see a potentially worrisome cadet branch of dragons smothered.

* * *

Alyssa has never known life without Baelon. She has toddled after him from her earliest memory. The first days after she scatters his ashes to the winds pass in a blur, a bad dream she will surely awaken from any moment with her brother by her side. At last she knows how he felt when swallowed by grief over Aemon. She sees no way out for herself until news of the Great Council comes.

Alyssa comes back to herself in a furious roar that scorches the walls of the Dragonkeep and has the poor messenger ducking for cover. Damn sniveling Vaegon for his idea, when precedent urges Viserys, a man grown and dragon both, as Baelon's natural heir!

She and her sons fly high and far, from the armies gathered in their name to all the lords who have ever spoken a word of support. The supports of Rhaenys and her damned Velaryon son are insidious, for many are the house's trading ties and loud House Baratheon's weighty approval. But the rich men of the westerlands are always eager for more of that trade to flow into the Sunset Sea, and the Reach and rivermen alike fancy no one of stormlord blood on the Iron Throne, so bloody their histories of the Durrandon kings. In the Vale they find fast allies, in Runestone and Gulltown and the Eyrie itself.

The Great Council is a farce, a thousand lords and their retinues squashed into Harrentown. Alyssa's smile freezes on her face as she treats with countless that offer her and her sons their support, try to shake down dragons for every title or favor they might grant in the future. Aside from when she must argue the rights of Viserys or cram into Harrenhal, Alyssa looms from the background. The snakes that warm a grieving widow skitter like mice before a dragon.

First heard are the delusions of leeches. Nine lesser claims are first entertained. Alyssa laughs three different bastards of Saera's by three different men off the floor. The alleged bastard half-brother talks up his mother and his own virtues. King Jaehaerys, who sits through the Council like a weary statue, does not even look to him aside to stir in fury at the insinuation he would ever betray his Alysanne.

The other claimants are at least trueborn, descended from distant branches of the family. A Massey and Darklyn stake their claims through distant dragon blood, one petty lord from a younger daughter of Daenys and Gaemon, no dragon herself. They are snakes full of hot air. All fall silent in the shadow of dragons.

The Red Princess asserts her claim by first flying a lap around Harrenhal. She is made much in Aemon's image, though her hair is Baratheon black. She speaks her claim with the fiery passion Aemon has taught her. Too much, Alyssa notes acidly. A dragon queen is one thing to these lords. One who dares command them like a man is quite another.

Viserys is three years younger, but built broad and powerful like Alyssa herself. His scales shimmer a rich, royal purple. He does not fly alone. Alyssa flies at his side, the largest dragon to take wing since her father gave it up. Flanking them is Daemon, Viserys' heir until Rhaenyra proves herself a dragon. He is the red of freshly spilled blood, just as vibrant as Rhaenys. They are potent reminders Viserys springs of two dragons, calls one brother and heir.

Rhaenys flies alone. She is an only child with a doe a mother, a sea snake for a husband. Her children are young and unproven little seahorses.

The long hours of debate are too taxing for the Wise King, old and tired. He spends the final deliberation resting in his tent. It is Jocelyn who eventually caves to tend to him, for Alysanne and all his daughters but Alyssa are dead. But she must win Viserys his crown, ensured Baelon's memory honored and her father's wishes carried out.

Alyssa smirks with black dragonbone teeth when her Viserys is affirmed. The maesters never officially reveal the final count.

She laughs when her sources confirm her boy won twenty votes to one. Dragonstone is his. Blackfyre is his. The Iron Throne is the birthright of their line, forever and always.

That leaves only one matter to attend to.

Daemon is a diligent son when it counts. He appears soon after summoned, sober and only faintly reeking of sex. His red eyes watch her anxiously.

"Today is a joyous one, Mother," he ventures in her silence. "Father has been avenged. Our throne is secure."

"Viserys' throne, my little dragon," she amends sweetly. "To almost certainly pass to one of his children one day, when he or she proves herself a dragon." He stills when she cups his face. Ever since her Baelon died she can never quite finish her shift. Her black claws cradle him gently, lest she cut her own babe. "As their uncle it falls to you to protect them, to uphold their rights over whatever spawn of Rhaenys thinks to usurp them."

"O-Of course, Mother." Daemon does not swallow, with her claws so close. "Forever and always."

"It warms my heart to heart your devotion, little dragon. You have always been a diligent brother, raising up an army to protect your future king so. Little Rhaenyra and all her brothers yet unborn are your blood, _my _blood. This realm cannot tolerate another Maegor."

Red eyes blink. "Never, Mother."

Alyssa smiles. "Good. Then I believe I may finally entrust you with _this."_

Daemon is bold, almost always certain of himself these days. She smirks at his utter bewilderment when Dark Sister and its sheathe are laid into his arms. He is almost fearful when he looks back to her.

"Not to worry, little dragon. I have no intention of following your father anytime soon. I am simply... moving beyond blades." She takes Daemon's hands in his, to curl his fingers around their birthright. "Dark Sister is part of a mated pair, bound to the crown. Protect our blood with it. Pass it down when the time comes, should you believe your child a worthy consort of the throne. This is your burden, as Blackfyre is to your brother."

Red eyes meet her own unflinchingly. "I vow on fire and blood to never let you down."

"I know you won't." Alyssa bares her teeth to him in something like a smile. "Dragons protect their own, Daemon, and dragon mothers especially so. You'll understand once you grant your Rhea a child."

As a princess her chambers at Harrenhal are massive, the furniture befitting a giant. Yet she is a dragon and all this stone is only stifling.

Her burden passed on, Alyssa strides out and never looks back.

Outside she throws her arms open with clear intent. The crowd scrambles to make way for the last dragon of her generation.

Alyssa ascends into the skies, where the ashes of her mother and brothers still dance on the wind, and higher still where there spirits so. In wild triumph she dances with them.

She never feels much for coming down. Not ever again.

* * *

When the Wise King at least gives up his fight and follows his wife into the next world, Viserys is hailed as king in his stead. So does Alyssa at last gain her true title. She looms high and proud over the coronation as Queen Mother than she ever could as a mere queen, for this title assures her Baelon's legacy shall live on forever.

Dragonstone is quiet, for Rhaenyra is a young child still awaiting brothers or her own fire. All it has to offer is the Cannibal for company, and the only conversation she's up for is screaming at Alyssa when she gets too close to her side of the Dragonmont. The hoary old bitch can have it.

The Queen Mother takes up residence in the Dragonkeep, to more properly watch over her sons and their families. More grandchildren follow in time, thought not from Aemma Arryn and Rhea Royce. Both wind up dying on her. Viserys insists his blood is not sullied by taking Alicent Hightower to wife, for Rhaenyra is his heiress and a dragon herself. Alyssa laughs a dragon laugh, all spark and thunderous rasp, when she learns Daemon proved himself a truer dragon by claiming Laena Velaryon's heart as prize. It serves Rhaenys right, for seeking a lesser groom than a true dragon for her daughter.

The Dragonkeep never lacks for food or diligent attendants. But it is still damned drafty until Viserys, ever the diligent son, sees the keep well-stocked in firewood through all seasons. Maegor at least had the foresight to see the damned place well-ventilated. Wine-red fires burn bright in every hearth, for no flames quite warm Alyssa's bones like her own.

Even as she grows less social in her old age, the steady stream of company never abates. Her damned grandchildren keep multiplying. And then are joined by great-grandchildren.

Alyssa never bothers telling the damned brats apart. They all have silver gold hair and the violet eyes of Valyria. Their names drift together for her, near unintelligible as the endless stories they prattle to her and each other as they scramble over her tail or lean against her sides.

Their mothers always hover so anxiously. No matter how old and grouchy she becomes, Alyssa will never harm her own blood. She will sleep or grumble through visits but snarl at any damn servant that tries dragging her brats away before they are damn well ready to leave her.

The mothers don't fear her, not even Alicent. They watch their broods and each other for something else.

Alyssa never gives it to them. The Dragon Mother loves her brood equally and shows no favorites. They all smell of her and her sons. In them all she sees Aemon and Baelon, Saera and Viserra, her mother and father, all the ghosts come home to roost.

Most especially of all, the Dragon Mother sees only dragons. That is all her sons have spawned. Every child brought before her shall one day find their fire, be their name Targaryen or Velaryon. That is all that matters. A dragon of her blood shall hold the Iron Throne forever and always, no matter which it may one day be.

Alyssa Targaryen dies in her sleep one day late in her son's reign. Her sons and grandchildren and great-children ascend in the largest gathering ever, to see her spirit put to rest and her ashes scattered to the winds.

Viserys Targaryen is a babe in the cradle, never given a chance to meet the family's esteemed matriarch.

It is for the best. The Dragon Mother would have never recognized him as her flesh and blood.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Alyssa Targaryen nearly wound up claiming Balerion in canon until persuaded to take Meleys to mount. Her color as a dragon is thus somewhere between black and red - a rich, wine-dark color. I am also in love with her being a slightly nicer (but no less vicious) reflection of Visenya. And Daemon being utterly cowed by her as only Alysanne could do otherwise.
> 
> In canon Baelon is recorded as wielding Dark Sister, despite it being a woman's blade and Alyssa very explicitly said to have been into swordplay as a child. I headcanon Dark Sister was hers originally in canon, before he took it up in her memory.


	4. The Gray Ghost

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The life of Laena Velaryon, who came to be the Gray Ghost.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The original plan was to include the lives of Rhaenys and Daemon first up until the onset of the Dance. I didn't like the flow, so from here on out POVs will be chronological... by death date.
> 
> As an American I kept writing 'gray' for 'grey,' so for consistency's sake it's the same here.

Rhaenys Targaryen, for all she is a dragon, has never been haunted by their dreams. Her decision to blurt out her first pregnancy is an impulse, a more visceral intuition. Days before he departs for Tarth, the Red Prince's face breaks out into a grin at the thought of becoming a grandfather. His last human interactions with his family are to hug his daughter tight before pressing a reverent kiss to the smallest of bumps on her torso, before he seizes his wife in a kiss far more passionate. Then he transforms, radiant in gold and crimson scales as he flies south to what is supposed to be an easy campaign.

When the raven of Aemon's death reaches Driftmark, Jocelyn stands stoic as Alyssa Arryn. She evenly orders her husband returned home to Dragonstone and a pyre prepared. Only in private does she unleash a waterfall of bitter, bitter tears.

Rhaenys Targaryen does not weather grief like her mother, sturdy as Storm's End. She is a dragon that screams her rage to the skies. The air around her blisters with heat. All except Corlys Velaryon leap away from her impending inferno.

The fire never comes. Rhaenys sucks in her next scream, clings tight to the hands of her husband, and does not throw out her wings. To lose herself to the flames is to lose their child, the bump both her parents have so lovingly regarded.

Rhaenys inhales and exhales deeply, eyes burning. Each breath lowers the sweltering heat around her by the smallest of increments. Corlys drips with sweat. His hands bleed from where her nails have sank into flesh and tendons. He does not pull away. His voice, smooth and steady, guides her back to herself like he leads ships to safe harbor. She taks in his scent, the scent that made their child.

Corlys bears the scars until his dying day. But they do not lose their babe.

The Prince of Dragonstone returns home in the fastest ship that can be found on Tarth. Escorted first by the fleet of Uncle Boremund and then by dragons, no Myrmen dares attack it. He is attend by silent sisters. Their incense drowns out the rot and helps dry the moist air where it might take root. Aemon arrives in a sealed coffin. Rhaenys stops eating the day before his ship lands. Her empty stomach still roils at decay, salt, and bitter herbs.

The silent sisters typically preserve bodies through disemboweling and stuffing the chest cavity like sausage. But Aemon is the Prince of Dragonstone, and all of him must be given to the fire. He emerges from his herb-stuffed coffin recognizable as himself, however desiccated.

As a dragon herself Rhaenys should offer the first flame. All she can offer is a somber eulogy, for she can't sing for shit. Her grandmother lights a torch with her own flame so that she may still contribute. With five dragons to offer breath the pyre quickly catches alight in a brilliant conglomeration. Rhaenys' arms ache and her belly heaves when she must next mount her grandmother, to properly scatter her father's ashes to the winds.

Still she does not lose her babe. Even when her grandfather shifts back to declare _Baelon _both his new heir and the Prince of Dragonstone. She settles for shredding the sleeves of her mourning gown in her fury, so she does not maul her poor Corlys any further.

Before their firstborn gains a true name it is first called the 'boy in the belly' by the small council and a far wider range of lords that fear at Andal precedent being so blatantly passed over. On Rhaenys herself they speak little. Who cares she is a dragon herself, when all they see is a bereaved daughter fat with child? Instead they fret over a hypothetical son, a grandson of the Red Prince, for her rights would then become _his_ rights. No lord with only daughters wants their own grandsons passed over for the rights of their nephews.

Rhaenys and Corlys put a sharp end to the rumors they intend to name the boy Aegon or Aemon. Gods forbid saddle a child of theirs with such a legacy, as Alyssa named her own firstborn for a murdered uncle.

When 'the boy in the belly' pops out a girl, any real talk of challenging Baelon's place as heir gutters out. Rhaenys vents her frustrations by first returning to the skies to burn pirate ships in the eastern waters. Driftmark's prosperity draws them like flies to the kill. Only after several days of seething do they name their little girl Laena. Not for Elaena, long-dead sister-wife of the very first Aegon. For Valaena Velaryon, half-Targaryen herself. Every dragon seed still knows Lord Daemion would have happily thrown his own son aside, if she had proved herself the only true dragon of her generation.

Laena Velaryon, court insists, not Targaryen. Driftmark is her domain. She is a sea horse, not a dragon. She is safe to marry, to pass on the blood without ever showing it herself.

Little Laena inherits the full Valyrian look - Corlys' silver-gold hair and the lilac eyes Rhaenys and her father were both born to until they showed their true colors.

Court coos of her beauty. They speak nothing of the little girl that soaks up her father's travels like a thirsty flower, scribbles down every spot on a yellowed map she vows to one day fly to all by herself. Only on Driftmark do sailors know to search every crate and corner of an outgoing ship. Their little princess smuggles herself aboard almost as often as she escapes her nursery. She dirties her hair or rolls into wagons, so her mother cannot spot her so easily from the air.

More than she watches the sails, Laena's eyes watch dark wings. By rights she should call the shadow Aunt Aerea. She is of the same relation as the quiet septa from Oldtown that came up for her wedding to Corlys.

Only the royal family still speaks of Aerea Targaryen. To all others she is the Cannibal, the black shadow of Dragonstone, who partially devoured her own mother and preys upon men like sheep. As a young dragon Rhaenys herself was forbidden from flying on the island without an older dragon there as deterrent.

It only increases Laena's awe of her. The Good Queen and Jaehaerys the Ass die when she still but a girl, leaving the Cannibal the largest dragon in the world. Rhaenys' presence keeps her from straying over Driftmark, but still she sometimes veers frightfully close off shore, taunting her rival into a fight. Rhaenys, with human wits still about her, only warns her off through distant threat displays. Just because her father taught how to fight with fang and flame doesn't mean she wants to face the Cannibal. Those diseased jaws left Rhaena delirious with fever in the end.

From infancy Driftmark is flooded with proposals from both sides of the narrow sea, from great lords to sealords. Laena is of impeccable blood and impeccable claim, with dragon blood near on all sides. Aunt Alyssa of course tries to steal Laena away too, as if the proposal between Laenor for Rhaenyra weren't enough. Rhaenys smirks with glee when she writes the rejection letter and can almost hear the bitch's infuriated roar from across the channel. Cousin Daemon shall just have to settle for a mundane woman.

Corlys has two brothers, Aeron and Matthar. Both are as much sons of Queen Rhaena as he is. Aeron is most amenable to a match between Laena and his Haerys, who was so subtly named for Rhaenys' own grandsire.

Aeron is too busy boasting of his dragon blood to potential trading partners to realize the proposal lacks a solid date. Vaemon is a safe option, a shield between the ruthless surge of suitors and a girl blissful in her childhood.

When the time comes Laena can decide for her damn self, as her mother did before her.

Dragons answer to no one but themselves.

* * *

Laena Velaryon is nine years old when she first flies all by herself. Mother is so proud she holds off on punishing her for what Laena did to _get _in the air.

Or maybe because it's hard to ground a girl that keeps break bedposts when she shifts in her sleep. And setting her skirts on fire when she sneezes.

Laena basks in the attention. Driftmark is just Valyrian as Dragonstone, but she's the first Velaryon to be a dragon all on her own without marrying into the family. They cheer her when she breathes silvery flames above the harbor at night, because she loves watching the sparks dance across the water. At sea she skims the surface until her belly's full. Smart fishing ships even start following her to the best spots. She chases all away she doesn't recognize. These are _Driftmark's _waters, after all, she knows all her island's ships by heart.

Laena does not get to bask alone for long. Laenor is a little over a year younger than her and then named _for_ her, no matter what Papa insists. From then on her baby brother has always been trying to play catch up. He's just shy of his eight name day when he steals her thunder and transforms too. Probably from how much he burned with envy to match her.

Driftmark wets itself. People, from lords to sailors, won't shut up about their little Sea Prince. They always make a bigger stink over boys.

Laena isn't mad for too long. Mother is slow and old, much too boring to do anything more than fly and train with. Laenor races her around Driftmark. He's faster, but Laena catches more fish in their competitions. She is the undisputed master of rats and cats. She can hunt Laenor down in no time. Her scales, pale grey-white, blend into clouds and mist so her brother can never find her.

The charitable call her the Cloud Princess. The snarky call her Ghost. She is just as invisible, just as silent. And just as prone to making people scream when she swoops out of the mist to snag a fish or just scare the living daylight out of them. Driftmark soon comes to learn what dragon laughter sounds like.

They are allowed to fly south and southeast to their heart's content, so long as they stay within sight of the island. When they're older they are even permitted to fly all the way to King's Landing if they get approval first. Papa is always so easy to charm.

For years, they are forbidden to fly north. It matters not the island is Cousin Rhaenyra's, and she's Laenor's queen to be.

Rhaenyra is Princess of Dragonstone. The Cannibal is Queen of the Dragonmont. Everybody says so. That's why she can chase smaller dragons away and eat people, with the victims only getting a predestined grant in exchange, depending on the age and usefulness of the person killed.

When Laena is thirteen and so very, very tired of strangers shoving their sons at her, an idea comes to her. One that will prove herself a true dragon, not a girl to be chased after. Not a girl that has to settle for rude, entitled Cousin Haerys as her husband.

Laenor, who always jumps at her games, hesitates at this one. He bites his lip. "Are you sure this is a good idea?"

Laena smirks. "We're dragons, not sheep." She tussles his meticulously brushed hair, giggling at his angry yelp. "Unless you're one very confused and ugly sheep, you know what you are."

Her baby brother jerks, eyes narrowing. "I'm only a sheep if you are!"

That settled, they race for the cliffs. After Laenor carefully removes his fine outer clothes, of course. Laena wears simple leathers or garments of her own shed scales whenever she can. It makes it all the easier to fly without getting lectured later on shredding silks or trampling dresses.

Their tutors sigh after them. Dragons are exactly creatures to be chased down, not with Mother away in Oldtown visiting Aunt Rhaella and checking up on trading ties.

They transform in twin bursts of pale flame, diving instead of falling. Sea spray licks their wings before they lift away from the waves.

Laena is white-gray and Laenor pale silver. They head out east. In the thick fog they vanish like ghosts.

When far enough away from prying eyes they wheel for the north. Cousin Rhaenyra is away on Dragonstone learning how to be a queen. There is only one dragon on Dragonstone to worry about.

Laena circles for the back of the Dragonmont, Laenor at her tail. On this side of the volcano the Dragonguard rarely patrol. The cliffs are too steep for humans to easily climb. The largest den has long been claimed.

Its occupant is home. Laena gags on charred meat and dragon shit, for the Cannibal has marked every inch of this side her own. Her odor is _pungent, _somewhere between the stench that hovers over the sick and then the sourness of old people. Laena remembers the scent well from the laps of her grandparents.

The cave growls, churning out smoke. Aside from the glowing eyes, it's impossible to tell what is shadow and what is dragon.

Laenor whines deep in his throat, a sign of surrender, and whirls for home. Laena almost follows him.

Then she reminds herself she is no sheep. Boldly she slips forward, to taunt her aunt and her grandmother's killer from her cave.

Black flames sear through the fog. Laena screams, pearly wing membranes seared as she tries to follow her brother.

She is no Ghost, not against a dragon's nose. There is nowhere to hide beneath the Cannibal's shadow. She can only fly and _pray._

Smoke and shadow rise on ragged, thunderous wings. Against this Laena is no rat. She is a little field mouse, against a monster of a cat ready to rend her limb from limb.

Laena is small and nimble. She does not have the stamina to race for home with a monster chasing her. So she whirls for Dragonstone instead. Stone Drum looms like a beacon.

Not trusting the towers, she angles her wings and drops right into the courtyard. The Cannibal presses on.

Her shadow is almost overhead when she flinches backward. With one last bellow and shot of flames that falls far short, the Cannibal sulks for home.

Laena huddles to the ground and shivers like a trapped rat. The castle staff, nearly all dragonseeds, know to hang back. They chatter nonsense to her, before the smart ones switch tongues. It's not quite High Valyrian, but seedspeak descends from it as much as seeds do Valyrians, and gets through where the Common Tongue can't.

Eventually Laena lets herself get talked down. She transforms. An old woman throws a blanket over her shoulder and bundles her into the castle. There she stays until Papa sends half the damn fleet for vengeance against the Cannibal. And drags home only one disobedient dragon daughter instead.

Laena is safe and sound, save for some burns on the backs of her arms that never quite fade away. It is not worth all the potential lives lost in trying to slay the Cannibal for such a minor transgression to risk it.

* * *

By the time Laena is eighteen, more than a woman grown, Driftmark has become a prison. She flies and sails with her parents when she can, but theirs are trading missions bound by time and purpose. More and more, she finds her eye straying to the map of unmarked adventures she made as a child, all the places she can reach on her own now. Papa stopped at the Thousand Islands. Laena can soar to the ends of the earth.

Aunt Aerea had only flown off to Valyria. Laena shudders at the memory of her, to fly off in the dead of night to a fate worst than death, to leave her parents and baby brother without closure.

Laena is not only a dragon but a dutiful daughter, as loyal to her house as her brother is. If Laenor will marry a cousin he has no real love for to mend peace between their families and restore their rightful claim to the throne, then she can at least manage a respectable match for herself.

Besides, the thought of flying off alone is not so appealing as it once was. Surely there is at least one bold man out there who can ride astride her if he can't fly beside her, to reach the same unseen horizons and endless wonders. To perhaps, in fifteen or twenty years, to grant her some little dragons of her own.

Such a man is not Cousin Haerys, who failed at both squire and trader. Three knights let him go. His expeditions lose more money than they earn. Once Papa even had to ransome him from the Sealord's dungeons. Only Corlys calling Uncle Aeron brother, and Uncle Aeron's blithe refusal to let any attempts at gracefully ending the match go through, keep Laena bound to him.

As a dragon and a princess Laena does not answer to her drunk of a cousin. Not that the alternatives are much better. The lordlings that effuse her beauty stutter at her temper, her wit, her corpse-pale eyes. Those strong enough to face her think themselves strong enough to _tame _her, like she is a horse to be broken.

The stalemate is broken when Cousin Daemon, fresh in his widowhood, comes to visit alienated relations on Driftmark. Daemon is not the gentle sort of dragon like his brother, who dotes upon his brood, or the kind like Laenor that preens over his scales. Daemon is a _dragon, _fire made flesh in all his forms. The moment he lands on Driftmark, his blood-red eyes fixate on her, even as he exchanges greetings with a gusto neither of her parents share.

When she extends her hand to him, his kiss is outwardly chaste. Her heart flutters at the slightest tip of tongue when he pulls away.

She burns all the hotter when he pulls away.

It is animal attraction, primal as the seasons. Daemon returns her every quip with his own, even more vulgar, never shies away from the most suggestive dances. The castle's singers are sent back and forth to interrupt formal events with love poetry, each song more filthy than the last. She and Daemon watch each other's faces for the one to crack first, when the court becomes too scandalized to _not _laugh at.

Before Daemon can beat her for the punch, it is Laena who saunters up to begin an innocent debate on when a dragon truly suffers from their age.

"There is no denying you are in your prime physically, good cousin," Daemon demurs. His eyes rake long and hard over her form. She has worn her best dress tonight, of thin Myrish lace in sea blue. The silver belt around her waist leaves nothing of it to the imagination. "For flying, at the very least. You are small enough to be nimble, but with power in chest muscles that large to carry you distance."

Laena tilts her head to consider finely muscled arms. "Perhaps in a short race, good ser. Surely you must beat me in a marathon. One my size just could never hope to match your stamina."

Daemon dips his head in apparent modesty. "There also comes an age when the bulk becomes too much to lift for long periods. My good mother does not travel far from the Dragonkeep anymore. I cannot remember the last time your aunt left the Dragonmont's vicinity. The heat must warm her old bones."

"I propose a race, then." Her smile curves enough to be innocently playful to those that don't her like Laenor does. "To settle the matter once and for all."

Their race is _innocent, _suggestive nips to the tail and wing aside. Mother believes herself a chaperone, shadowing their every move from a distance.

Laena rolls her eyes in disgust. She is a dragon, not a dockside harlot.

_This _at last proves to be her betrothed's breaking point. Or perhaps Cousin Haerys was just too lost in his cups to realize how much the dragons made mock of the bride he believed is.

Cousin Haerys does not have the grace to surrender. Before Uncle Aeron can settle matters, Haerys proves his use as a son and heir by challenging a dragon to combat.

Daemon puts Dark Sister through his throat. The morning after the ashes are scattered at sea, he humbly approaches both her parents to seek her hand in marriage.

They are wed before Viserys can lift off his fat ass to protest two dragons of his house marrying without consent. Their passionate screams can be heard across Blackwater Bay, and their midair couplings spotted by ships, to let the realm know in no uncertain terms their marriage is very much consummated.

With nothing to hold two extraneous heirs from hunting their hearts' desires, they soar for the Free Cities. The Prince of Pentos welcomes them with open arms. From there they fly to Volantis. They are the first dragons behind the great Black Walls since the Doom. For all the Old Blood boast of unbroken descent from the Freehold and keep to their gods, the fire in their hearts is long dead. It lives on in Houses Targaryen and Velaryon alone, in the kingdom the Volantenes dismiss as a backwater.

Laena soon grows sick of Volantis. She is fawned over like a goddess, yes, but only so that she might roost behind the Black Walls and give them a brood to breed back into their bloodlines. A broodmare she is not. She and Daemon fly off broad daylight, with only a chilly thanks for their hospitality as farewell.

Up the Rhoyne they fly. The unending sacrifices to the Black Goat of Qohor soon wear thin. So do the unending bells of Norvos. She and Daemon spitefully fuck during the bells that call for them to rise, work, and rest.

Perhaps it is the damned nameless god of their cult that punishes them for their sins when the deep boom of one dawn bell wakes her one morning to promptly throw up over a disgusted Daemon.

The healers insist it is a blessing, that the god has blessed them with a child. Daemon lets them know in no uncertain terms that child was very much conceived in their notion of sin. When the last Norvoshi storms out of their manse in a huff Daemon collapses into a chair with a huffing laugh.

"Eighteen fucking years with Rhea, and you give me... _this _in less than one."

Laena arches a delicate brow, because true princesses are subtle about letting their victims know they are about to be burned alive. "Didn't you repeatedly try to annul the marriage for her barrenness?"

"I-I..." His face twists in a snarl. "I just wanted more time to enjoy _you, _gods dammit!"

"It's a problem easily solved," she offers. "Not even moon tea involved. We have years yet before we truly need to try."

Daemon pales, red eyes wide and sick. "Is that what you wish?"

Laena casts her mind back. Ten years ago Viserys had raged against Daemon getting a White Worm pregnant, in shaming both his wife and his house by loudly declaring the babe would be a true dragon, and that then there would be no choice but for Rhea to be put aside.

Mysaria had been forced onto a ship in exile. She had lost her child upon a stormy sea.

Laena touches a thoughtful hand to her belly. Then smirks. "Don't be an old man in twenty years, my prince. Or else I'm flying off this time to adventure and pretty young men without you."

Daemon considers this. Then he lunges at her with a joyful growl. She tackles him first, onto the thick rug beside their fireplace. They both snarl at the high chime that grates against their sensitive ears.

"No way in seven hells are we staying here." A vein in his forehead bulges when another bell tolls. "I'll raze this damn city long before the babe is born."

"Pentos," she declares firmly. "It's the least offensive city we've seen yet out here."

Daemon submits. Just as he does to her frequent stops across Essos. The babe in her belly never settles for flying. And is fond of making Laena spew onto unwitting villages below.

The mystery is solved some months later, when the ninth frazzled midwife is the one to wrangle out a second babe. She wails her indignity to the skies and sets her sister off again.

"Ah." Daemon's face softens as he considers the screaming bundles in his arms. "That is why you couldn't keep anything down. They tried to kill each other eight moons straight."

Fortunately for him, Laena is in a merciful mood that night, and giggles hysterically. "Don't be a fucking fool. The gods are paying me back for what Laenor and I did to my mother. They'll be each other's best friends before they drive us both to an early grave."

Daemon swallows his pride. He sends a letter his brother begging their return to Westeros and a court presentation for their girls, to formally declare them issue of a legitimate marriage. Laena is not raising twins in exile. She will fly back alone with them if that's what it takes, because Viserys never learned to handle a woman's tears.

Daemon's humility is thankfully enough to make Viserys crumble. Together they sail back with their girls. Gods be damned if Laena is flying across the open ocean with two squalling infants strapped to her. Instead the ship provides a safe place for Baela and Rhaena, a bed to lay their heads each night. During the day they will circle the ship to fish and ward off pirates. From the deck below their daughters look up and laugh their approval. Daemon moves more nimbly than Laena has ever seen him, to delight their girls with his spins and swoops.

They settle on Driftmark, far away from self-righteous Alicent and her bothersome brood. Laena is welcomed back warmly, their prodigal returned at long last. Papa embraces her and Mother sweeps her beneath her wings. Once she puts Rhaena and Baela in their arms they can only regard Daemon with icy courtesy, rather than drive him from their home.

Laenor and his family live right across the bay. Her good-sister Rhaenyra is Princess of Dragonstone. Scarcely a week goes by without one dragon or the other flying their children across to visit their cousins. They fondly look on as their children race and roughhouse. They're all little dragons, Laena knows proudly, and fearless in their fun. Laena and Laenor can always be talked into racing, often with their children astride. Daemon and Rhaenyra are slower, built for speed, not strength.

In the beginning the Cannibal is a dark shadow over every visit, but the fear soon fades. That hoary old bitch never dares challenge a whole family of them. Mother and Daemon are two of the largest dragons in the world. With their watchful shadows looming over their families the Cannibal is only a roar heard in the distance, a dark cloud of smoke on the horizon. In her old age she spends most of her days slumbering away deep into her den.

Soon come the days when Laena's arms itch deep in their scars, when her wings ache to never come down. Always it is easiest to fly in the direction of home, where her heart forces her to return to children who cannot follow. When she must soar past it... Her eye tilts south to the Summer Isles, east to Essos, west to lands past the sunset no man or dragon have ever seen.

Laena throws herself into motherhood, the first words and budding ambitions of her girls. Her girls shall always have a home in Westeros. Baela will one day be Jace's queen and Rhaena Lady of Driftmark. Her talks and sedate flights with Rhaenyra help uncoil some of the unending tension in her gut. What energy left she burns out in racing Laenor until her wings give out or fucking Daemon up to the seven heavens.

These lessen the days when she circles islands without ever wanting to come down, when she wants to rip her maps out of storage and vanish into the horizon. Nothing ever damps down the urge completely. Laena is not the sort of dragon content to spend her days basking on the Dragonmont. Her wings are meant for the wind. Her heart is not to be caged.

Twenty years, she vowed to Daemon. Twenty years to see their children grown, secure in their futures and families. Twenty years until Laena can put this all behind her.

Three years in, Laena barely wrangles down the urge to fly away by simply throwing herself atop Daemon instead. She forces herself to stay down at the thought of what that day and all the days after it brings. Even the possibility of a pregnancy banks her fire, lest it burn a babe just like her girls. The maester's confirmation weighs her soul down with resolve.

In sixteen years this child will be a man or woman grown. They will not need a mother or father anymore, will have no shortage of family in sisters and cousins. Mother, young as she is, might linger for decades after Papa passes.

Laena vows to Daemon this child shall be their last. Leaving behind grown dragons is one matter. Orphaning half-grown children is quite another.

Three years down. Seventeen to go.

* * *

When round with their babes, Laena had been... the most settled Daemon had ever seen her. Perhaps because Rhaena and Baela were up kicking her sides day and night, leaving her too nauseous and exhausted to be anything more than wearily irate. They had settled her in a way no other could. This babe only stokes the flames hotter. Laena paces the halls like a caged tiger on sleepless nights, stalks up the towers to stare hard up at the stars and out to the endless waters.

Daemon does his damnedest to keep her grounded. He carries her to bed or at least the closest corner. He flies endless hours to be the wings she must keep furled up tight inside. For the babe's sake. If she was to shift to now...

Laena teases they should name the babe for him, Daemion. Daemon doesn't care about the child's sex. Baela is more bold than a thousand boys. She and Rhaena are dragon's both. All he cares is that the babe _lives. _He dares not think what Laena will do if this has all been for naught.

Dragonseeds are a superstitious lot, the beliefs of old Valyrian colonists blended with the Faith and local beliefs. The shriveled old midwives of Driftmark and Dragonstone both fret Laena has too much fire in her blood. They beg her to bank the fires in her blood, vent them through prayer or books or quiet contemplation. Sex and flight are bad for the babe, bad for her. Laena must keep herself rooted to earth and her own flesh, lest she burn up from the inside out.

Daemon bites down on his sneers. These old hags are venerable on the isles, know poultices and poisons that can heal or harm a dragon as no other can.

He remembers Viserys, and all the ill will he wished upon his brother's short-lived sons. He remembers Mysaria and their babe, lost to a ruthless sea.

The babe stays. It grows. It quickens. At this stage in her pregnancies Rhaenyra happily settles down to brood. Laena paces. Her patience dwindles, until she starts snapping at servants, at Daemon, her own parents. One day an innocent question from Rhaena, no different from a hundred others ask that day, makes Laena snarl at her to shut the fuck up.

The blood drains from Laena's face. She is quick to apologize and smother their daughter in penitent kisses. Rhaena is their sweet girl and holds no grudges. Too young to fully understand her mother's outburst, Rhaena forgives and forgets the incident with only a few quick tears.

That day Daemon flies her and Baela to Dragonstone. Rhaenyra is a vigilant mother, if far from the most faithful of wives. Daemon trusts them with her and his sword-swallowing good-brother, on an isle shared by the Cannibal, more than he ever can in a castle shared by their pregnant mother. With three cousins to raise merry hell with, and each other, the twins don't overly dwell on it.

Daemon visits as often as he can, to show his girls they are still loved and wanted by his own damn parents. He leaves wrangling Laena to Rhaenys and Corlys.

On one innocent morning Daemon finds himself regaling his daughters and his alleged nephews with his conquests of the Stepstones. Laenor is supposed to be visiting his sister on Driftmark. At a dragon's frantic shriek Daemon's gaze snaps to the window. His heart drops as the Sea Prince's silver form frantically circles the towers. He swings his girls from his lap, wrenches their balcony doors open, and reaches the sky with a running leap and searing red-gold flame.

Daemon strains his bulk as fast as he can go, flaps until his wings and lungs burn. Laenor, small and slight, soon outpaces him. Daemon fears it's already too late.

He's not. It's only just beginning.

Laena labors a whole day and night. She breaks the bedpost, first screaming in High Valyrian before devolving to wordless roars. Daemon and Rhaena and Laenor take turns in holding her own. Corlys tries once, until he is thrown dazed and bruised against the wall. They take her bites and gouges with grim determination. To let go is to give her and the babe to the fire.

The septas wail of demons and flee the room. The exhausted, shaking master stays standing only because the eyes of dragons bore into him, ready to burn him if he breaks. In the end it is the old, implacable midwives of the island that shove him aside. They weather a dragon's rage like grizzled sailors do storms. Their calm, unceasing flow of dragonspeak calms Laena enough for her to cooperate. Mostly. Their old skin is easily bruised, their brittle bones broken. Still dragonseeds are of the blood. And dragons never surrender.

In the end a squirming, writhing... _thing _is pulled from Laena. The maester faints. Laenor recoils with a snarl.

One midwife coaxes Laena through the afterbirth, stitches up the wounds torn open to bring forth her burden. Another checks over the thing. Her hands shake but never falter as she cleans and bundles it in blankets meant for a babe.

"A son," the midwife manages at last. "Name him while he breathes."

"Too much fire in the blood," quietly tuts another.

Daemon, who has brazenly mocked kingdoms and forged kingdoms, does not have the courage to take that bundle from her. Laenor and Corlys stare on in horror fascination when it is Rhaenys who at last takes the babe into her arms.

"He takes after you, good-son." Daemon cannot tear his eyes away from raw, red scales. Rhaenys strokes one gently. "It happens, sometimes, in those of the blood. Most especially with dragons."

Laenor swallows. "I-I thought I imagined your belly growing larger. I was only three, and Laena couldn't have been five..."

Molten eyes flicker from her son to an agonized Corlys, before fixating on Daemon. "I was not an only child by choice. Now, won't you hold your son?"

Daemon is no coward. He takes the bundle into his arms. Those scales are roughly his color. There is no hair, only two red sores where the eyes should be. Carefully he works the bundle loose enough for a hand to slip out. Baela and Rhaena had latched on strongly. His son's long, spindly fingers twitch limply. Small white claws draw blood.

"Daemion," he forces out. "Daemion Targaryen."

His son, his mistake.

No septa can be forced back into the room. No septa is needed. Rhaenys herself sprinkles water over his head to baptize him. Desperate mothers have always done such for those babes that live just long enough to be welcomed into the seven heavens. Such is the Mother's grace to them.

Daemion does not cry, does not try to nurse. His hour of life is spent cradled, rasping for every breath, in the arms of his parents and grandparents.

Laena keens, high and savage, when he falls silent. She clutches him close and bites Daemon when he tries to take him from her. After hours of quiet murmuring, it is Laenor who takes him from her. It is the first and only time he holds his nephew. He arranges the blankets with great care. Swaddled in black and red, face shrouded in shadow, Daemion looks a true babe from a distance.

Ashen and burning with fever, Laena wrenches herself from bed. Before she collapses Daemon scoops her into his arms.

"Our son is a dragon," she growls up to him. "He's earned a dragon's honors."

In High Tide's yard a pyre is hastily thrown together from firewood and scraps from the docks. Laena snarls and screams her way free of Daemon's arms. She falls in a tongue of dull white flame. Her family scramble to give her room. As a dragon she can scarce lift her neck. She manages a dull spark among three brilliant plumes that see Daemion on his way to the gods.

The pyre is small, its ashes even smaller. Corlys somberly bends to scoop up the ashes. Little Daemion is small enough to fit in one urn that is mostly charred wood. Instead he divides the remains among four.

Dragons can offer no spoken solace. Instead Daemon croons, a low and tender sound usually only used for their twins. He buts his head gently against her side, hunches himself low in an offer that he shall forever and always be her wings.

Laena bats him away with a snarl. Gently taking the first offered urn in her mouth, she throws open her wings and wrenches her way into the air. Her family follows, circling fearfully beneath her. Perhaps together Rhaenys and Daemon can catch her if she falls. Perhaps.

Singed white wings catch enough wind for her to tilt her head down. Their son drifts away, before the wind shifts. His ashes become a small, sooty stain on pale gray scales.

For a time her family circles High Tide with her. The sun sets and the stars rise in a shining sprawl. Laena does not react to their crooning calls or to her father's shouts below. Her corpse-pale eyes gaze somewhere far away, where none can follow.

They try. Oh gods, do they try. Laena lashes out when they get to close, with fang or flame. She drifts higher up to vanish among the clouds. In the dark her scales shine as if she is not part of this world at all.

Laenor is the first to surrender, wheeling for home to inform his wife of what has happened today. Rhaenys, old and weary, returns to the comfort of Corlys. Having already lost one child today, Daemon eventually forsakes his wife for those left to him. Baela and Rhaena crash into his arms. He hugs them close, inhales their sweet hair, and blinks back the unfamiliar sensation of tears.

No dragon can fly forever. Laena must come down eventually, back to him and their girls. For now the dragons of the family take turns watching her from a careful distance, so she does not drift out to sea and away for them forever. All they can do is grant her space and the time to return to herself.

On her first day the ghost drifts listlessly over Driftmark. On her second she extends her range to Dragonstone. Rhaenyra keeps the girls penned up inside, away from the windows, to keep them from glimpsing what their mother has become.

The ghost does not drink. She does not sleep. She does not even swoop down to snatch fish from the waves.

On the third day, Daemon is on vigil. From a distance he watches his wife falter once, then twice, before she plummets like a stone. A terrible scream rips the air when she plows into the Dragonmont. Too late he realizes it's his own.

Laena is gone by the time he reaches her. Perhaps she died on impact. Or even before. No amount of butting her head and her wings can rouse her. She cannot hear his screams, but scream he does.

A shadow black and final as the Stranger descends. Daemon bellows, throwing his rage and fury upwards in blood-red flames. The Cannibal lurches in surprise before she thunders right back. Her breath, hot and rancid, slams into him.

Daemon throws out his wings; not to fly, but to form a living shield between that beast and his wife. The Cannibal will have to damn well make meals of them both.

From behind him another dragon roars. It is not Rhaenys, not Laenor, not even fucking Viserys. Rhaenyra is yellow like butter, formidable for her size. She is powerfully built like the Dragon Mother and her amber eyes blaze murder. She joins her call to Daemon's. Together they roar loud enough to make even the Cannibal falter.

With an ornery growl the hoary old bitch swoops back. She cannot keep her bulk airborne for long and so returns to the Dragonmont. Panting for breath and black wings thrown open, she looms over like a colossal vulture.

Daemon and Rhaenyra snarl right back, wings splayed over a ghost. Their vigil is not over until she is properly put to rest.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Per last series Corlys and his brothers are sons of Rhaena. That not only gives the brothers heightened claims to the throne, but makes one the next-best choice as a husband for Laena . Seeing as she is a dragon she would definitely not be married out of the family, much less Westeros. I still don't know why GRRM chose to have the Sealord's son be her final betrothed instead of, say, a Celtigar or Massey. Giving away a woman with a living WMD and a real claim to the throne to a foreign power is mighty bad politics. Especially when Laena could have helped secure Laenor's own dynastic claims in Westeros.
> 
> In canon Laena technically doesn't die in childbirth but to child-bed fever which is... not that better. Given her short-lived son is known to have been deformed and not lived an hour... Maybe there was a reason Rhaenys was an only child.


	5. The Silver Prince

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The life of Laenor Velaryon, the Silver Prince.

When Laenor Velaryon is eleven years old, he is dragged out of his lessons and sat down before his parents. They stare at him as if about to announce yet another death in the family. Already in a letter Laenor has learned of a little cousin that was born and died before he ever got to meet him. The queen died too. He wonders if the Dragon Mother finally died. Then he fearfully wonders if King Viserys is dead or maybe if he killed Prince Daemon instead before he could do the same to him.

Then Laenor is told, in no uncertain terms, he will wed Rhaenyra when they are both of age. He will be her king consort. One of their children will inherit the name Targaryen and the Iron Throne with it.

Laenor blinks. "Does this mean Laena gets to be Lady of Driftmark instead?"

Papa lays an assuring hand on his shoulder. "Little dragon, Driftmark is _your _birthright. We wouldn't let the king take it from you. One of younger children will inherit it one day. Only if you have one child does it fall to Laena and her line."

Laenor nods dutifully. He knows he should have been born a prince. Grandmother should have been a Queen Mother and Mother a queen, before King Jaehaerys and Prince Baelon stole their birthright away. Of course they wouldn't want to be robbed of their rights _again._

"I can be a lord and king," he assures his parents. "Driftmark and Dragonstone are right next door to each other, and King's Landing not much further away."

Laenor is eleven years old. He knows dragons marry dragons, and certainly that he is one himself. He's had his wings for four years now. The only other dragon Rhaenyra can marry is Daemon, and he's her old uncle. It makes logical sense Daemon is her betrothed, old family claims aside. He knows Grandmother will rest easily, that her great-grandchildren will at least be proper kings and queens if her daughter and son can't be.

Laenor is only just starting to find his eye watching the older boys in the yard more for their muscles than their forms. He knows their japes only make him oddly breathless, that he does not feel the same urge to tease the squires his age for mooning over maids. By the time Joffrey Lonmouth drags him into the hayloft and he _knows, _he is near a man grown. And his obligations imminent.

Dragons answer to none but themselves. But Laenor is also a prince. He is sworn to his parents, his people.

To Rhaenyra.

Laenor is no Beast King. He knows how to be discrete in his dalliance, how to smile for the maids and grant his favors to the objectively pretty ones at tourneys. His loves are few and far between. Some dragons hoard gold and power. Laenor holds his Knight of Kisses. Wings are a wonderful thing. He can take his Velaryon cousins for rides and so slip away from time to time with a close friend. There are many islets and coves where no one would ever seek to find a dragon and his knight.

Ser Criston Cole all but sneers boys are not to be trusted with him, that the younger squires that trail after Laenor like little brothers are all his catamites. Laenor holds his head high. He is no Hightower, to drag himself into the filth. Dragons fly above such pettiness.

By the time Laenor is a man grown he is resigned to his formal spouse. He still has near four years of reprieve before a wedding date is truly held. King Viserys spoils his daughter so, and she has no wish to give up her maidenhood any time soon. Nor does Alicent Hightower wish to see the marriage ever observed.

After four yeas of mounting impatience on his parents' behalf, Laenor is thrown into a tourney that sees him knighted at the end. Strong as dragons are, his competition folds quicker than usual. From his victory Laenor is paraded through feast and festivities, to mingle with the great powers of the crownlands. His parents are both there. But it is grandmother who never takes her eye from him. Beneath her baleful gaze there is no time to slip away with Joffrey until near dawn.

Jocelyn Baratheon does not sleep. She sits awake with her ghosts. Now, in the last days before she sees justice done, Grandfather must haunt her most of all.

* * *

Laenor has always dreamed of marrying in Spicetown, if only for the spectacle of it. The town is his father's pride and joy. The Sept of the Seas is brand new and elegant, of the same pale stone that comprises the Eyrie and High Tide. His silver scales would shimmer radiantly beneath the stained glass.

But Laenor is not marrying a Velaryon. His family flies to King's Landing. The smell of the sea is an old friend, dried fish and all. Laenor's keen senses always make him near wrench when the capital's odor of shit and too many bodies packed together slams over him. From above High Tide is elegant in its planning. King's Landing sprawls out like the tapestry of a senile weaver.

Laenor's own scales are a pale silver-gray, much like the Silver Queen before him. For his wedding a different suit of armor is pulled from storage. Though faded from age each scale is painstakingly polished until they shimmer radiant red-gold, as if their owner had not died years before Aemon's own birth.

Laenor shudders to don the armor of the Red Prince, a spare set made of shed scales not his own. Still this is the legacy of his grandfather, protected by the same magics that allow his own scales and dragonsteel to shift with him. In the Freehold it was not uncommon for Valyrians to wear the scales of dragon relatives for formal events, to boast of common blood ties, or to even wear the colors of a more prestigious dragon if honoring their legacy.

Today Laenor secures a throne that should have been Aemon Targaryen's, even only through right of his wife.

Grandmother smiles thinly when she sees him. "You look much like your grandfather did on our wedding day."

He regards his own reflection with a shudder, to behold the ghost of a man he never met. Laenor's hair is paler silver, more white, than that rare silver-gold the old women still sigh of. His eyes are silver, not molten gold.

Aemon Targaryen had jumped at the chance to finally wed his lady love. Laenor Velaryon dreams of a knight, tow-haired and dark-eyed.

"Would I do him proud?"

Stormy blue eyes appraise him. Grandmother prods a hand against his back, straightening his posture. Laenor is lithely built. The broad shoulders of the armor disguise it.

"You are, little dragon. You _must._"

They are not wed in the holy walls of the Dragonsept. Rhaenyra's grandmother would take up most of the interior, if she could ever squeeze through the doors. Alyssa Targaryen has not been human since shortly after her brother's death. She looms as a living colossus in the great hall. The pews are arranged to grant her a respectful berth, not a fearful one. Laenor does not shudder beneath her mismatched eyes; one wine-red and the other human green. He strides down the aisle like a knight charging into the fray.

Rhaenyra Targaryen stands like a dragonlord stepped out of history. She is fierce in her beauty, eyes blazing like amber. Her silver-gold hair is braided back in the style immortalized by Visenya, crowned with a circlet of Valyrian steel. Her gown is midnight black, etched in intricate Myrish lace of a thousand dragons. Their eyes are pearls and diamonds. She stands near tall as he does. Her eyes bore into him the entire ceremony. He smiles serenely back, calm as Papa in the squall.

Laenor wears the silver seahorse on his cloak. He removes it to not drop around his bride, but to take her cloak as his own. The blood of his grandfather is restored to its rightful colors. His heirs shall bear their rightful name.

He keeps their first kiss light and chaste. He pulls back before she can sink her teeth in his tongue. They stride down the aisle hand in hand. Laenor looks everywhere but his bride. Grandmother and Mother watch with proud, blazing eyes. Papa is more subdued in his joy. Laena flashes a sympathetic smile and King Viserys look on in kingly benevolence. His wife and younger children fidget with narrowed eyes.

Joffrey's eyes catch his. Surrounded by so many eyes he can offer only a grin and rolled eyes. Laenor smiles wanly back. The Dragon Mother's eyes bore into his soul.

When they are free of the Dragonkeep Rhaenyra erupts in yellow flame, so quickly he must shy back. Her gown, a king's ransom, crumbles into ash as she spreads her wings to cast a shadow upon the crowd. Laenor swiftly follows, pushing his growing bulk against hers for room. Rhaenyra is not true gold, but a color yellow as butter. She is noticeably larger than him like this, robust where he is graceful, built to kill and not to soar.

Laenor is first into the air, pumping his wings higher and higher until his bride and the stink of the city are far below. He fixates on Joffrey, so brightly clad in the colors of his house. For a moment he imagines swooping down to snatch up the knight, fleeing all this for a life across the sea.

Dragons don't run from their duties. They face them head-on.

Rhaenyra surges up as if to ram him out of the sky. Laenor gracefully spirals out of her way. He turns every furious charge into a dance as he swoops and spins around them. If this is a challenge, then he wins by not letting her break a wing. He can't fight her but he sure as hells can use up her energy. He turns his evasion into a graceful dance, to convince the crowd below their flight is courtship and not combat.

When Rhaenyra is out of breath he slows down and doubles back to the Dragonkeep. He bites her neck just so and lets her drag him down to the towers below.

With the rumors there can be no ambiguity with their marriage, no slipping out of sight and letting the furious roars speak for themselves. They consummate their marriage in the sight of gods and men. For all she forces her body against his Rhaenyra locks eyes with Alicent Hightower, white-faced and furious. He moves out of mindless duty. She writhes in spiteful passion.

His duty done, Laenor flies for the Red Keep and his own damn chambers. He peels Aemon's skin from his own, throws himself into a bath. Fresh clothes and a heavy dose of perfume help wipe her scent from him. Joffrey coyly offers to help with that, but this one time he quietly turns away.

Fifty years ago Maegor deflowered three human Black Brides in one ceremony before raping his grandmother for all the city to see. The least he can do is not smell of Lonmouth on his wedding day.

At the feast he finds Rhaenyra in splendid red and violet, near the colors of her formidable grandmother. He stifles a sneeze at her perfume. It is one long popular since Maegor's court; pleasant enough to a human nose and drowning a dragon's senses.

Before the cheers of the crowd Laenor and Rhaenyra kiss one last time. They happily sit side by side, immersed with their respective families. Jesting with Laena and Joffrey, Laenor only needs to smile or dutifully hands with Rhaenyra when she catches Alicent's spiteful eye. They share the first dance of the night. Rhaenyra then reels into the arms of Ser Harwin Strong and Laenor rescues his sister from the flood of suitors. They spin for several songs, tuning out all else, until their parents deftly sweep in.

"How fares your lady wife, my son?" Mother asks lightly.

Laenor smiles as Rhaenyra at last convinces her father for a dance. "Managing, Mother. She is future queen, after all. Consorting with the lords of the realm is a necessity."

"Of course." Molten eyes stare at his neck, to the burgeoning bruise left by a dragon's jaws the high collar cannot fully hide. "Always respectfully, I see. You have staked your claim for all to see."

With practiced grace Laenor foists his mother on an unsuspecting partner, happily picking up a delight matron instead. Rhaenyra switches her sworn shield for one of the Kingsguard. She dances with six of them, young and old, for they and her sworn shield have long been her protectors. Only Ser Criston Cole stands apart. He has formally rebuffed every offer onto the dance floor. His cold green eyes track Laenor's every move. Laenor calmly stares back until the knight redirect his gaze to Rhaenyra.

Laenor reminds himself to take any other knight to Dragonstone, even the Strong Rhaenyra is mentally undressing above the head of old, short Lord Gaunt. Better the rake than the hateful, puritanical statue.

When the first rowdy notes of _The Bear and Maiden Fair _start, Laenor smiles gallantly at the maidens that swarm his body. The worst part of his night is already over.

No one can touch Rhaenyra before Ser Harwin swings her into his arms. His bulk makes even the dragon in his arms look small. Laenor gamely turns away from the hand rested against the knight's chest. They both know Rhaenyra is no blushing maiden, frightened at the grasping hands of lords. Her amber eyes blaze at the indignity.

Once alone there is no reason to pretend. Laenor slumps idly against a wall. Rhaenyra paces the sumptuous quarters like a caged animal.

"Must we?" she growls to him.

Laenor shrugs carelessly. "I already did the part that mattered."

Rhaenyra sneers. "Oh, yes. I suppose for you conquering a dragon was preferable to the beauty before you."

"You are beautiful in skin and in scales," he counters. She pauses in her pacing. "But we both know that's not what matters here."

"Yes." Laenor freezes when she grabs his chin, tilting his head as if considering a courser. "You've the face, not the body. I appreciate broad shoulders as much as you do, lord husband."

"We are Prince and Princess of Dragonstone now, my dear Rhaenyra. Surely we are both safest with our knights by our side?"

The princess freezes. At last her head cants in slow consideration. "I'll not have any bed I share smell of... _human."_

"The same can be said for me," he returns. "But dragons are allowed their playthings."

Amber eyes glitter in the dark. Then Rhaenyra falls into bed. "Not tonight. We've suffered enough indignity today as it is."

He blinks. "Soon, then?"

"The sooner it's made, the sooner we move on with our lives."

Laenor claims the opposite side of the bed. Like a true knight he keeps to the edge. Rhaenyra sprawls out regardless. He sleeps atop the duvet, for beneath the sheets beneath burn like a furnace from a heat not his own.

They rise easily at dawn. Wine has little effect on a dragon unless one downs cups of it. The Red Keep is too exhausted and hungover from the festivities to care their princess strides away with Ser Harwin as her dutiful shadow. Or that their prince steals into a bed not his own.

Joffrey groans into his pillow when Laenor kisses his neck. Slipping beneath the sheets and kissing him five more times at least makes him stir.

"Thank gods you're here," he manages between panting breaths.

"Oh?" Laenor cards his fingers through flaxen hair. "Was one night away so terrible?"

"Had a nightmare she ate you," Joffrey grumbles.

Laenor throws his head into his pillow to stifle his guffaws. They pour out of him, a pressure that has been building for years lifted at long last. "Please," he scoffs. "She doesn't like the taste of me. And I'm the dragon that prefers eating knights to the maidens."

Forgetting the very long day before them, and the very long life after that, they simply cherish the quiet morning already here. With Rhaenyra's tentative understanding it is hopefully the first of many yet to come.

Their nightmare ends before it can truly begin.

For six blissful days.

Then dawns the day of the melee.

Laenor rides the list on a sturdy gelding long trained to carry a dragon without panicking. Outwardly he wears his wife's favor. The one in Lonmouth colors he wears beneath the armor, folded carefully above his heart. He does not win the joust. That honor goes to Ser Harwin Strong, strongest man alive. Of course he bestows the crown of blood-red roses to Rhaenyra. She is his future queen, and he her sworn shield.

Joffrey, hungry for his own victory, dares the melee. He wears a Velaryon favor, for Laena of course supports her brother's dear friend when her own betrothed is not present. Ser Harwin Strong wears Rhaenyra's token and vows to prove himself the best warrior in the world to honor her.

Ser Criston Cole with nothing but a prayer to the Warrior. He wears the token of Alicent Hightower when he breaks Harwin's arm and collarbone.

When he cracks Joffrey's helm.

In a haze Laenor spends the next six days at Joffrey's side, as maesters come and go. When septas take their place, praying not to the Smith and Warrior but the Crone and Stranger. News of the public outrage against Ser Criston does not stir him. Neither does the revelation Alicent has successfully persuaded her husband to name the man her own sworn shield.

All that matters is Joffrey, every stinking bandage changed and every labored breath.

The nightmare ends only six days later, when Joffrey makes last one rattle, and goes still. He never wakes, no matter how Laenor has prayed and pleaded.

Laenor weeps. Steaming tears strike Joffrey's cooling form. His parents try and fail to coerce from his side. He only clings to his Knight of Kisses tighter, and snarls at any who think to tell him he can't spend eternity like this.

Finally Laena enters. Laenor tries and fails to growl at her too. All that escapes is another choked sob, and countless more when he abandons the clay-cool corpse for the warmth of his sister's embrace.

"Criston Cole killed a favorite of the crown," she murmurs in a dragon's concept of solace. "It was carelessness at best and deliberate murder at its worst. He should justice, whether by the king's hand or the gods.'"

"No," he forces out.

_"No?"_

Through his tears Laenor glances hopelessly up at his sister. She is the older one. Has she learned nothing from their history? "It will not bring J-J... _him _back. No more than poisoning Visenya brought Alyssa Targaryen back her sons and Aenys. Or seeing Maegor dead and Tarth burned brought our grandmothers any peace."

Let the Hightowers have their petty victory. Laenor will not be the one to inflame tensions further, when his line of the family have graciously accepted all the betrayals thrown their way. He will not be the one to drag all the realm into war for personal injustice.

Even harder than giving up on vengeance is surrendering his Joffrey to the silent sisters. He should burn Joffrey with his own fires, set him loose upon the wind so that one day their spirits might soar together for eternity. But his knight only pledged a life together, not forever. His bones belong beneath the seat of his birth, to rest beside those of his brothers and sisters. So release him Laenor does.

With his love released and duties done, there is nothing left to tie him to this viper's nest. Laenor spreads his wings. He takes the long way back to Driftmark, circling near the entirety of Blackwater Bay. In his scales he cannot weep. In his scales he can be as close to Joffrey as possible. Only lifeless bones are being brought back to Lonmouth. His soul is high above, in the seven heavens.

Laenor settles in a cave, too steep for his father or fragile grandmother to reach him. Laena and Mother near shake the argument with the force of their fights. They pass over his head. It will be weeks until the next tedious observance at court will order him back to Rhaenyra's side. Let her enjoy her freedom. Let him sleep through his grief.

Heavy wing-beats reluctantly dredge him from black dreams. Laenor blinks languidly at the dragon darkening his cave mouth. It is not Mother, come to lecture her him again. Nor Laena, offering silent support. Rhaenyra looks like the Stranger.

He sighs hoarsely as something else occurs to him. So much for convincing the kingdom their wedding night conceived a child.

There is nowhere hide. So Laenor sticks his head beneath his wing and pretends to sleep. When flames dance across his silver-white membranes, he braces for the pain. The hands that climb him like a mountain are not painful, not truly, but her feet dig into his scales for extra purchase. And to make a point.

Laenor raises his head to blink at the princess that settles herself between his wings. So rarely does he see her wearing her own armor of shed scales. She scowls back, squeezing her legs like he is a particularly stupid horse.

"Husband," she bites. "Take me home. _Now."_

Laenor obeys. He flies her to High Tide, for she never specified which home. Her legs only dig in tighter when he lands.

"The moment I dismount, shift. Fly away and I'll break your wing."

She means it. She can do it. So shift Laenor does. He stands nude, having burned through the garments he wore six days straight at Joffrey's side. Rhaenyra snatches his hand and drags him inside. The servants hasten to get the doors open before scurrying like mice. She drags him into the closest bedchamber.

"Help me!" she commands, tugging at snug scales.

He does. He falls limply into bed when pushed.

"Now what?" he asks archly, voice cracking on his first words in weeks.

"Lie back and think back of muscled knights," she snaps at him. "Or supple youths. Whatever the fuck you want, so long as you _want."_

Laenor shuts his eyes. Her hands are too soft to pretend, her grip strong enough to make him a eunuch by accident. But by gods is her mouth convincing. So much he can almost remember Joffrey, who always looked better clean-shaven than his miserable attempts at growing a proper beard. He immerses himself in the memory, to drift away from all that happens afterward.

When he lies spent and boneless Rhaenyra lets him go at last. Rolling to her feet, she winces in disgust, not discomfort. She is no blushing maiden. Their wedding showed that to the kingdom, on top of the all the years they remember of her riding dragons before she ever found her own wings.

They spend a week at High Tide, smiling and making the obligatory idle talk with his family at meals. All other hours of the day they keep to themselves. Laenor flies and fishes with his sister. Rhaenyra does not join them. She spends her time indoors or a horse, visiting the sights of Spicetown or conscripting new gowns from the luxurious silks sold in its shops. Seven nights in a row, she hunts him down. They leave bedchambers and linen closets stinking of each other. At meals Mother becomes less icy in her courtesies, starts engaging Rhaenyra on all Driftmark and Dragonstone might share when she and Laenor properly claim their seat.

On the eight day Rhaenyra commands her fly him to their seat. She waves dismissively at him when he moves to follow.

"Please, lord husband," she sniffs. "Go back to your home. We've done our duty."

Laenor does. High Tide is so close to Dragonstone. When his wife commands, he's there for every dance and celebration that marks their first days of shared rule. He never spends the night, flying back to Driftmark when the crowd is too drunk to care much where he goes.

A moon passes. Every one of his parents' sources on Dragonstone speak the same; their princess never flies.

"I suppose congratulations are in order," Jocelyn Baratheon sniffs, when the topic is broached that night.

Laenor blinks, reeling on his feet before he regains balance. "Yes," he murmurs dazedly. "I suppose they must be." Since Driftmark his wife has always preferred her numbing perfumes. He has not paid enough attention to say otherwise.

Days earlier than expected, he soars for Dragonstone fast as his wings can take him. Rhaenyra is not surprised to see him.

Laenor staggers at her scent. She has freshly bathed, smelling floral but not stiflingly so. He smells her fully, even like this. He wildly recalls Alicent Targaryen, who always so proudly called attention to her rounding belly at court during all four pregnancies.

"Well?" he chokes out.

"Well?" she retorts, hand going to a belly yet smooth. "Your job is done. For now. Unless the Mother blesses... _us_ with twins."

"How long?"

Rhaenyra gives him the maester's estimate. The timing lines up. Of course it does.

Their secret is not secret long. Every one on Dragonstone knows what happens when a female dragon stops flying. Father's little snakes report near a doubling of Hightower spies. He increases their numbers in turn.

* * *

When Rhaena goes into labor in the last days of the year, Laenor is naturally by her bedside. It is he who whispers a steady stream of High Valyrian, mostly old love ballads and then sweet nothings when his mind runs blank. The cadences of the Freehold calm a dragon in labor like few things can.

Of course the princess' sworn shield is by her side too. As the strongest man alive Ser Harwin is the one to grimace through a grip that leaves a burgeoning bruise and scarring nail marks behind.

Their son is brought forth squalling his fury to the world, loud enough that Laenor's keen ears ring the sound. By the time he's cleaned and swaddled he's burned through most of his energy all he can do is scowl when the maid passes him into Laenor's arms.

Laenor stares. The babe stares back.

"Er, your grace," Ser Harwin attempts at last. "Perhaps you should let Rha- our princess hold her own babe now?"

Laenor's grip only tightens.

"Never try to take what a dragon considers theirs, good ser," Rhaenyra answers wearily. "You'll burn for it."

His parents cannot be put off forever. Eventually they force their way inside. The old midwife skitters out of Mother's way, for she is old enough to remember the days when Rhaenys Targaryen should have ruled this castle. Laenor stiffens when his mother stands at his side, craning over his shoulder to stare long and hard at the babe.

"A grandson, I heard?" she murmurs.

Molten eyes fixate on Rhaenyra, who sits tall and proud in child-bed. "Yes," she answers silkily. "Your grandson."

"Does he have a name, then?"

"Joffrey," Laenor blurts out.

Deadly silence falls over the room. Ser Harwin's hand twitches. Perhaps it's lingered pain from being near broken by a dragon. Perhaps it's out of self-preservation that drawing a sword against an even older dragon is a sure way to die.

"Jacaerys," Papa declares at last. "Jacaerys Velaryon. A wise choice, my boy. It's an old and venerable name."

"The name of a king," Rhaenyra insists quietly. "One day he'll succeed me as a Targaryen."

As Princess of Dragonstone Rhaenyra recruits her staff from the island. Her castellan and master-at-arms are both dragonseed, so are many of her household knights and leal servants. They are strong men, good men, with the pale hair and blue-violet eyes most on the island share. Laenor trusts them with his life, with that of his son. Having grown up on Driftmark, he knows that none can protect dragons better than those of the blood themselves.

Their Jace is not an only child for long. He is followed a year later by little Lucerys. This time the labor is easier, and Ser Harwin escapes with only minor bruises.

To Laenor all newborns resemble red, ugly little squashes. Luke is a plump and robust babe of seven moons when he is to be presented at court for his christening. Rhaenyra beams like the sun when her father coos and takes her son from her arms into his own. Jace, who is squarely situated on Laenor's shoulders, is far more fascinated by the Iron Throne. He babbles excitedly into his father's ear in a mix of common and High Valyrian. Perhaps Rhaenyra insisted on starting him a bit too early.

"My," Alicent Hightower remarks warmly, "what a strong little boy your Jacaerys has turned out to be. I still remember him as a babe that age."

"They grow up so fast, your grace," Laenor returns courteously. "Jace climbs whatever he can so he can leap off it all. Poor Ser Qarl near broke his leg rescuing him just the other week. At this rate he'll be flying before he speaks."

He grins when her smile curdles. Jace's thatch of pale silver has finally settled on a silver-gold shared by Rhaenyra and Viserys, his eyes a pale blue that remind the older courtiers of Maegelle's. Luke has a head of pale ringlets like Laena's and eyes of deep blue-violet.

"He and Lucerys have grown so handsome," she tries instead. "Who do you suppose they resemble the most?"

"Rhaenyra and I share so many relatives," he answers. "I can't help but see them all in our sons. Our boy are blessed, to be descended twice over from the Wise King and the Good Queen, and the Conqueror many times more."

So much more dragon blood than all of Alicent's children put together, for being Hightower makes them only half dragons. Laenor's sons are solely of the blood, however they came to it.

No presentation is complete without the Dragon Mother meeting the newest of her brood. From the Red Keep they proceed to the Dragonkeep, for Alyssa Targaryen does not fly easily anymore. Alicent watches in breathless anticipation when her husband strides forward with little Luke in his arms. Mismatched eyes, larger than the Red Keep's grand platters, appraise the babe. Aemond's eyes shine gleefully as the moments drag by.

Luke, no stranger to dragons but baffled by one so big, giggles and reaches out with eager hands. The Dragon Mother leans forward to snuffle him, thrumming in deep approval. She does not draw back in disgust when he reaches slobbery hands to poke at her cavernous nostril.

Jace babbles a demand to go next. He giggles at the ring of smoke blown his way.

Alyssa Targaryen behaves no less tenderly when Laenor can at last present his Joffrey to her two years later. He is fair-haired, with wide blue eyes. Viserys must work his fingers free of the Dragon Mother's eyelid.

Dragons know dragons. They always do.

And his wife bares only dragons.

* * *

They fly fast as they can, the wind screaming through his ears. His wife shrieks even louder. Spicetown's crowded streets clamor to give her room. She crushes several stalls with the width of her wings, cracks the cobbles beneath. Corlys slides down her side. Before he touches the ground flames envelop her. No fires catch in the rain-soaked thatch, but Corlys cares nothing but for the frantic report babbled into his ear. He jostles the man aside before Rhaenys can slam into the wall. She rips the house door from its hinges.

They are too late, always too late.

Rhaenys shrieks to behold their son in a stranger's bed, limp and pale. He hangs like a rag doll, silver eyes unseeing, when she takes him into her arms.

A lover's quarrel, the man repeats. A fight, his wife insists far more tactfully. Corlys cares only for the name blurted out.

"Ten thousand dragons," he chokes out, "for Qyle Correy."

Rhaenys shudders at the name. The Qorrey knight had not been like Joffrey Lonmouth; younger of Laenor, not of an age, with far more love for a dragon's gold than a dragon's touch. With a thunderous snarl she rises from their son's side. She rips off several roofs in her haste for the sky.

Corlys' shoulders strain as he takes Laenor into his arms, as if he is a babe once more. It's a cold comfort to at least cradle one child. All he could hold of Laena were her ashes. Once Laenor is home, given into the arms of the nurses that raised him from infancy, Corlys turns his baleful eye to Spicetown. Qyle Correy best pray Rhaenys finds him first. Against her he will die swift in dragonfire. The Sea Snake has the presence of mind to be _creative _in his punishment.

Corlys scours every building in Spicetown for him. Rhaenys sweeps over the whole damn island for his scent. The trail goes cold at the docks. They turn to the manifest and hunt down every ship. None of their cramped hulls hold him or any trace of his presence.

Someone must have smuggled him out. Or tossed his dead, weighted body to the crabs, deep enough where not even a dragon's eyes can detect him in the depths. It matters little now.

After seven days of fruitless searching, the day can be delayed no longer. Every dragon descends for the funeral. Even ancient Alyssa Velaryon makes the flight, shaking the earth with her landing. Exhausted she sleeps near a full day. It gives time for the silent sisters to finish preparing the body, for a grand pyre befitting a future king to be raised.

Once more Corlys must swallow his tears and deliver the rites to see his son into the next world. No one else has the words. Laena and Rhaena stand quietly under one of their sire's massive red wings. All other of their family stand in their scales, either stoic or shivering. Alicent stands apart from all of them, by those dragons she calls her children.

The pyre is swift to burn, for a single man is so much smaller than a dragon in her prime. Corlys wades into the smoldering remnants to gather the first urn. His gaze flicks from his wife to his good-daughter. Finally it settles on a dragon scarce larger than a mastiff.

"Jace," he calls quietly.

The little dragon shuffles awkwardly forward on his wings and claws. He has not had this form two full moons, since damned Aemond pushed all three of Laenor's boys into finding their fire years to early. Corlys would burn with the injustice, if not so damned burnt out. Little Jace stares helplessly at the urn and then down at his wings.

Rhaenyra rumbles reproachfully, leaning over to take the urn in her own mouth. Jace is much too small to take it in the same way, much less his little brothers. Smaller pouches are found for them instead, more easily carried by mouth or talon. One by one, the dragons rise in a rainbow. Corlys fixates on his grandsons. Their colors are much too vibrant to delude himself into thinking of his Laena or Laenor.

Perhaps Jace's pale gold came from Laenor's silver diluting Rhaenyra's yellow. Perhaps Luke's sapphire blue loosely hearkens back to the sea his aunt and father adored. Perhaps Joffrey's rich red scales are from Rhaenys.

They are but three of twelve dragons, the largest rising of such the world has witnessed since the Freehold.

Corlys prays their numbers will only multiply exponentially, that his grandsons and Laena's girls shall have broods of dragons all their own to dote upon.

The hollow void that once held the love for his children whispers their numbers shall only dwindle. He outlived his own dragon children. He'll outlive them all.

With their father far overhead, Baela and Rhaena press to his legs for his comfort. He clings to them both.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> By 120 Rhaenyra and Alicent's children are all said to have had dragons, whether they've flown with them or not. Here the fight Aemond picks after Laena's funeral prompts all three of his nephews to find their fire too. He still loses the eye. And gets more scars too boot.
> 
> Given her siblings very much being dragons too, and having the importance of birthing more dragons beaten into them since birth, both Laenor and Rhaenyra feel the pressure more heavily in canon. Mostly because they're betrothed immediately after Rhaenya gets declared heir. Their paternity is more... ambiguous here, as far as Westeros is concerned. All that's matters to their mother is that they're her dragons. And Laenor acknowledged them as such. Believe whatever you want to be believe :p


	6. The Gilded King

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The life of Viserys Targaryen, first of his name, the Gilded King. His reign knew peace and prosperity.
> 
> Until he helped burn it all to ashes.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Last chapter before the Dance arc begins, folks. Some details and characters are changed around due to prior events in this fic, but the broad strokes still stand.

Viserys has few clear memories of his childhood. Most blend fondly together, maesters smiling at his coursework and giggling friends that think to hide from him in the Red Keep's winding passages. Father helps Grandfather and Uncle Aemon in their rule, flying far and wide on their behalf. Aside from what his father drilled into his head of rule and sums, he has little memories of his father aside from the occasional flight astride his back.

Mother is more present in his youth, of course. She teaches him how to manage sums and charm the court, so that he might both lavish gifts upon his favorites but only grow his gold in the trade and investments reaped from such friendships. It is she who swats him near black and blue with Dark Sister, to at least make him passable in swordplay even if he shall never be a prodigy. Well into his later years, when reaching for thirds in a meal, he will think of her mismatched eyes upon him.

"You are a dragon, little prince," she always chides him, gentle and unrelenting. "Not a pig."

Beyond Mother's eyes, one wine-red and the other green, he recalls Daemon. Brothers should be the fastest of friends, like Father and Uncle Aemon. Viserys tries with his baby brother, tries and fails. He is generous with all toys except his very favorites, which are the only ones Daemon wants of him, to gnaw and smash and throw out windows. Viserys duels him wooden swords. Daemon ignores all rules to whack him when his back is turned. Daemon screams up a storm when their parents or grandparents ever dare to take Viserys out flying or riding all on his own.

"Daemon isn't like you, little dragon," Mother scolds once, when Viserys finally explodes in a bitter rant. "He is a dragon, to take what he wants when he wants."

"I'm a dragon, too!" Viserys shouts. "I just know how to be nice too!"

"Yes, little one, you're the patient sort of dragon," Mother agrees. "You're the type to sit on your hoard and grow it bit by bit. Patience is a good thing. You are made to lead, and Daemon to fight on your behalf. If he is to ever learn to listen you must be patient with him, but also firm. Dragons do not roll over like dogs for the first scrap of food or friendly hand."

"But _when _I be a true dragon, Mother? Because Daemon says-"

"You already are a dragon, Viserys," Mother cuts in sharply. "You will fly when your time comes. Don't ever force yourself. Wait for your fire to find you."

"Yes, Mother," Viserys answers quietly, but without a waver in his voice. Dragons should only sound decisive, and never uncertain.

Viserys waits. He throws himself into his lessons and learns all he can from Father and Grandfather. His friends grow by the year. So do the hours he must spend each moon keeping up with them by raven.

The only exception is Cousin Aemma. He sends off a new letter each day one arrives from the Eyrie. Aemma takes a little bit longer to write back, because she weighs the raven down with lengthy book recommendations and critiques of works older than the Conquest. Once a year she and her father come to visit, or else Viserys' family fly out to the Gates of the Moon. Uncle Oswin holds the castle on his brother's behalf, for Lord Rodrik and his eldest son live all the way up on the Eyrie.

In his boyhood Daemon breaks a dozen bones from throwing himself off walls and out of trees to find his wings. He's dragged out of gambling dens and thieves' alleys disguised as an filthy urchin. Father and Mother confine him to his rooms, run him ragged in the yard, or sentence him to weeks on end in the stables and kitchens. Viserys is smugly glad of it, for _he _is the dutiful son praised by his parents and elevated by his grandparents in comparison.

Viserys breaks no bones, never risks his own life. The pointed questions of when he shall find his own fire wash off him like water from a duck's back. He is a dragon, and he shall transform when he is damn well ready. Mother is patient. Father never even speaks of the matter.

Viserys is fifteen when Uncle Aemon dies and Grandfather decides to name Father his new heir over Cousin Rhaenys or her unborn babe. This elevates Viserys from being a spare prince to a future king. More eyes fall upon him than ever before. Their gazes are no longer idle or curious; they are sharp, appraising. Viserys burns when they turn to Daemon. He can see the wheels turning in their heads, as they gamble on which of Baelon's sons will prove himself a dragon.

Right before Viserys turns sixteen, he silences the whispers forever. It is a struggle to rise on his own wings, when they scream more than his arms ever did in swordplay. Yet in this he cannot fail. Beneath the eyes of his parents, of his royal grandparents, he ascends from the Dragonkeep with a triumphant bellow.

His first intention is to fly to Dragonstone, the seat that will one day be his own when his parents ascend the throne. One circuit of King's Landing tells him that is impossible. His leaden wings will plunge him into the sea long before he makes it. Instead he rounds the capital twice more before landing atop the Dragonkeep. The people cheer as if this has been his plan from the beginning. No one but himself knows otherwise.

And his parents. They drill him day in and out. Training doesn't cease until he can fly out to Dragonstone or Driftmark without feeling winded, until his Mother deems him capable of forcing another dragon out of the sky.

On his final day his mother inspects him sharply. He stands stoically as she stalks around his form. His rich violet scales come mostly from her. So does his size. He is large for his age and apt to grow only larger. His heart soars with her approving nod.

"You are a full dragon and a man grown," she declares. "The time has come for you to wed."

Viserys bows his head without transforming back. He does need to speak his vow for Mother to know his sincerity. She has raised him better than that.

Of course Aemma is his bride to be. She is the only girl near his age of the blood. Cousin Rhaenys is wed to Corlys Velaryon. Their daughter Laena is much too young for a first wife.

Mother sees no reason for a lengthy betrothal. They are wed in the Dragonsept at the year's end.

Viserys strides down the aisle in shimmering purple. The armor is a bit tight, for he has only produced so much shed scales over the past few moons, but it helps him cut an even more heroic figure. Only years of strict training keeps his smile dignified. He wants to howl at the sight of his cousin.

Aemma stands straight and stoic like Alyssa Arryn in miniature. Truly, for she is not quite five feet. Her ice-white hair is pulled severely back, her eyes a cool mountain blue. She is eleven years old. When he drapes his cloak over her shoulders, she is near drowned by it.

Aemma rips her dress in clamoring up his shoulder. Beneath the gown of blue silk and samite are shimmering silver scales, sewn from Alysanne's own hide. She is a granddaughter of dragons and deserves ample protection in her first flight.

Their only ride is around the walls of King's Landing, wholly symbolic. No one expects their marriage to be consummated years yet. Today is simply a means to bypass many unpleasant years of arranging a dowry and a day.

"This city is an utter mess." Viserys cranes his head back in bewilderment. No Arryn is afraid of heights, much less one of dragon blood herself. Aemma scowls down at King's Landing as if observing a mess in the kitchens. "I've never seen it from the air before. Up here it's worse than I ever imagined. Have our grandparents cared _nothing_ for city planning?"

Viserys tries to land three times before his new wife will let him. She beholds the center of their dynasty like a septa noting down all the ways she must beat an unruly child into shape. He spends his wedding feast graciously thanking extended relatives for their gifts and well wishes. Aemma uses their seats of honor next to their grandparents to drag King Jaehaerys into a passionate discussion of fifty' years worth of urban planning. Their grandfather, faintly horrified, tries catching his wife's eye. Alysanne remains engrossed in her conservation with several great ladies of her generation.

Viserys retires for sleep. Aemma shakes him awake at first light with deep bags under her eyes. As her husband he is given the honor of flying her around the city twenty times more, before her half-scribbled map is painstaking in its accuracy.

While Father increasingly takes Grandfather's burden for his own, Viserys and Aemma spend the first few years of their marriage in procession as his parents and grandparents had done before them. They acquaint themselves with the wider realm and its greatest families.

Viserys is generous with his patronage when it comes to the lords and ladies that show them the same basic courtesies. He graciously leaves all others to his wife. Those that think the little princess will be humored by idle talk of gowns and handsome knights are sorely mistaken. Aemma is tenacious as a hound. Once she sinks her teeth in she doesn't let go until she knows everything of the fief's vassals and tax system. Her copious notes are neatly tucked into detailed maps of the castle and outlying towns, drawn from dragon-back.

* * *

As a man Viserys is not allowed in the birthing chamber. A dragon's keen hearing spares no gruesome details. He winces as his wife curses him and his manhood in verses of fourteen, in High Valyrian and the style of Freehold ballads. At least he is oblivious to all those screamed in Old Andal. And half a dozen other archaic tongues Aemma has picked up from a life lived in books.

His knees quiver at a babe's high, sudden wail. His father claps him on the back.

"Congratulations, lad. You've a little dragon of your own!"

Viserys swallows, torn between a grimace and a giddy grin. After all the hours that had dragged in, he was starting to...

"Well?" Mother arches an expectant brow. "Haven't you somewhere to be?"

"Should you not be there too?" he murmurs anxiously.

"Later," she promises him. "When Aemma has had time to collect herself. And vent out her instincts to rip out our throats for disturbing her and her babe."

With that final assurance he is pushed into the room. His gaze first falls on Aemma. She is pale, alarmingly so, but sitting upright. There are deep bags under her eyes, but they are as sharp as ever. The bundle in her arms is squirming. Viserys' breath hitches in his throat.

"A-Are you-"

"I'll live, Viserys," Aemma breaks in. Her lips pull into a frown. "Perhaps I was bit insistent on getting the arduous part of my role over and done with. We've a daughter."

"Our daughter," he breathes reverentially as he takes the babe into his arms. "Our babe."

He beams down at a grumpy red face and then back to his wife, who smiles wanly back. Even his boundless joy is... tempered somewhat. If their family considered daughters viable heirs, then he and Aemma would not be in direct line for the throne at all. But that makes the babe in his arms no less loved. Already, looking into squinted eyes, he knows her a dragon. She is proof a healthy son will come in time. She will still be a queen, if only her brother's.

"Rhaenyra," his wife states. "Rhaenyra Targaryen."

Viserys blinks. Considering their shared history, he had always envisioned he and Aemma naming their first girl Alyssa or Alysanne. "That... is quite a grand name for such a little girl."

Aemma rolls her eyes. "Like your parents were any kinder when they named you _Viserys Targaryen. _She'll grow into her name, love. _You _most certainly did."

If not for the babe in his arms, he would pat his gut ruefully. With Aemma so far into her pregnancy, he had gorged exceptionally on cattle, and had never dared fly too far for fear of missing the delivery. "It's a lovely name, love, but not one I've heard before. Did you pull it up from somewhere in the old family lore?"

"Of course not. Our family has two many damned namesakes running around as it is. Our daughter is a brand new soul. Her name honors those that came before, but is one she must forge for herself."

Viserys smiles sadly at that. He is a namesake himself, for a great-uncle that lived a short and torturous life beneath the Beast King's cruelty. It is a legacy that will define him for decades more, until that ill-fated prince fades away into the chronicles and he himself becomes King Viserys, first of his name.

With Rhaenyra hearty and hale, there is no rush to try for a son. It takes Aemma a month to recover from bed rest and another six for her moon's blood to return. Her courses, once regular, now come unpredictably. Maesters murmur that even fifteen is sometimes too young to become a mother. Court gossip interprets the princess's sporadically bloody sheets as miscarriages, attempts to grant her husband the army of sons Alyssa could never grant Baelon.

Aemma slaps the first maid that dares tell her she prays to the Mother Above on her behalf. She and Viserys have not shared a bed since early on in her pregnancy with Rhaenyra.

Their first child was conceived in a haste to fulfill their duties. The second is conceived in spite. Aemma names him in such. Their boy is called Aegaerys for both the Conqueror and for the Wise King, the two greatest kings their dynasty has yet produced.

He does not live three months, before succumbing to a chill. His ashes are interred besides those of Aunt Gael in the catacombs beneath Dragonstone.

Aegaerys is not the only Targaryen lost that year. Weeks after burying his babe, Viserys must rise to scatter his father's ashes on the winds.

The maesters call it a burst belly, his own organs turned against him. When Grandmother had lain dying, she had certainly never been with her own shit. Daemon hisses it's poison. More than one suspicious eye falls on Jocelyn Baratheon. Her mother poisoned Visenya Targaryen, the largest dragon alive, to escape Dragonstone. Perhaps she passed on her art to her youngest, most vengeful daughter. One with every reason to see a stable succession thrown into the uncertainties of a 'Great Council.'

Daemon raises the matter only once to Mother. Lost in her grief, she finds herself to strike her youngest hard enough to send him smacking into the wall.

"Stop whispering of intrigue like some... _serpent_. Go fly forth and win your brother his kingdom."

Fly Daemon does, rallying supporters for their cause and even a whole damn army to counter the Velaryon forces. Viserys knows Daemon is so ardent for his own claims. Until Daella grants him a surviving son precedence makes Daemon his heir. Still, with Daemon and Mother both soaring at his side over Harrenhal, Rhaenys' claim falls on deaf ears. She is a solitary dragon with unproven children. Viserys is a man grown, with a formidable warrior as his de facto heir.

Scarce two years after that, Viserys is a crowned king, his grandfather's spirit loosed to the wind. The Gilded King, they call him, for his father's gold lives on in the brilliance of his crest and horns, in the tips of his shimmering wings. Aemma is twenty-one, recovering from losing Aegaerys, and Rhaenyra a fierce and precocious little dragon. Daemon is a placeholder.

Still, Daemon is his brother, who fought so fiercely for his claim. Viserys rewards him a seat on the small council, an unofficial chance to prove himself. Savings fail during his stint as master of coin. As a master of laws he picks more fights than he settles. Viserys does not blame Otto Hightower in the slightest for wishing his brother off the small council.

Appointing Daemon Lord Commander of the City Watch is not a slight. If Daemon is bored of politics and carefully honing soft power, then Viserys shall grant him all the excitement he craves. In this a dragon excels. Crime falls. Two thousand men, well-armed and well-trained, keep his smallfolk safe. Otto then frets Daemon has done _too well _in his position.

"Yes," Viserys agrees mildly. "Strict new laws, military discipline, and the safest streets King's Landing has known in decades. My brother could not have done a better job."

"Perhaps, your grace," Otto wheedles. "But the gold cloaks look to _him_ and not to the king that pays their wages."

Viserys is not a tall man, but he is a broad man. He squares his shoulders and looms as only a dragon can. His rich violet eyes blaze in a way mundane purple cannot. "And Daemon is loyal to _me, _good Hand. Our parents did not raise another Maegor."

No matter how much he fears the havoc Daemon may wreck, Viserys can never fear _him. _He is his brother, raised by the same attentive parents. Their father sired no monsters. Their mother has raised only dutiful sons. She watches over them still from the Dragonkeep, with no words needed to show how much she cares for them.

* * *

Aemma's last words are not to beg the Mother for mercy or sob for Viserys. She snatches the closest midwife by one bloody hand and snarls at her that her son must _live, _whatever the cost. The maester quietly assures Viserys his wife's last sight in this world was her son pulled from her alive, her last sound his cry before the Stranger ushered her forth into the hymns of the seven heavens.

Viserys lets the lie slide by. The babe bundled into his arm is two moons two early, near pale as the mother cooling in her birthing bed. He quietly names him Baelon, for his own father, the failed founder of their line. A raven is sent out to those dragons on Driftmark, a pyre raised high within the walls of the Red Keep.

Within a day, it becomes a pyre for two.

Viserys is still awaiting his Velaryon cousins when multiple trusted sources first report of Daemon's biting apathy, his toasts to the 'heir for a day.'

The king slams his hands onto his desk, sturdy oak cracking. He spits sparks when he declares Rhaenyra his heir, forever and always. She is Aemma's first and last child, a little dragon now with wings of her own. She will be in her prime when Viserys and Daemon are both large and lumbering.

Viserys wishes he had only heeded the gods sooner, that Aegaerys taken as the warning he was. Perhaps then his Aemma might have seen her plans for revitalizing King's Landing completed, raised their daughter to be just as rigorous in her rule.

The moment Daemon learns the news is the same he erupts into the sky, shrieking his rage, high and hateful. Viserys meets him above the Red Keep with a guttural roar of his own. Daemon is large and lithe, scarred from a hundred battles taken in human form. His king looms all the larger, with a bite capable of snapping even his neck in half. They circle each other in the first steps of a dance Maegor and Rhaena last took so many decades ago.

The Dragon Mother's shadow eclipses them both. She is the storm, and her roar its thunder.

Viserys rumbles, spiraling low in surrender. Daemon keens, red eyes rolling. Viserys does not know if he means to fight or flee.

Finally, after a lifetime, even the Blood Wyrm lands.

Neither dragon concedes their stance. The Dragon Mother does not care if they do. Beneath her baleful eye they stand peacefully with their extended kin as all send Aemma and Baelon to the gods.

Before the last flames die Daemon takes to the east, flapping as hard as he can. Laenor and Laena stare after him in bewilderment. Rhaenys snorts disdainfully after him and falls silent when Alyssa Targaryen, their unquestioned matriarch, snorts even louder.

Viserys pays his brother no mind. Rhaenyra huddles at her side, hiding her head in her wing as her mother and baby brother crumble into ash. He sweeps one wing over her, to cherish the last gift left to him.

Moons later, when his small council frets over his brother's escapades on the Stepstones, Viserys musters only derisive laughter. Daemon is no Conqueror come again. He is not even a Beast King. He hasn't the attention span to be either. All his gains in the south will be ash long before Viserys is.

"Let Daemon play at war," is all he says upon the matter. "It keeps him out of trouble."

* * *

When not training Rhaenyra as both dragon and future queen or ruling his realm, Viserys spends his waking hours in the Red Keep's private sept. In the quiet he prays for Aemma and their sons. He prays he can at least do his parents proud, build the stable dynasty they struggled to give him. He even prays for Daemon, that either his heart shall finally know peace or he shall find the glorious death has sought since childhood.

In the sacred silence is Viserys' last refuge from his well-intentioned, but poorly timed, councilors. He doesn't need Laena fucking Velaryon or one of her numerous cousins to birth him sons. He doesn't need a Baratheon bride, or a Celtigar one, or a marriage alliance with the Free Cities. What he needs is time to mourn, for the urn of his wife and son to actually gather dust.

Not that he blame Alicent Hightower for her piety. She has prayed every day here since coming to court in his grandfather's time. Viserys certainly can't banish her to the Dragonsept, so far out on Visenya's Hill.

One day, after weeks of mutual silence, Viserys can take it no longer. "Pardon me, my lady, but I believe we have spent endless hours like this without me ever once asking how you fare."

Alicent Hightower starts slightly, before turning away from the Father's shrine to grace him a curtsy and sheepish smile. "Please, your grace, forgive me. I am but a simple maiden of the court. I come here to pray for my family. We're a large house. I have yet another cousin expecting a child and another about to set sail for an expedition to the Free Cities. I feel... more productive here, then in letting my worries fester inside."

Viserys knows this too. In the Mother he pours his anguish for Aemma, in the Maiden his hopes for their daughter. Since news of Daemon has he has favored the Warrior of late. For years Alicent has bent before the Father, since Jaehaerys believed her Saera returned from across the narrow sea.

Tired of the dead, their conservation strays to safer ground, their families. As the days pass they spend less time in prayer and simply in getting to know the other.

Aemma had loved arcane literature and architecture, sketched out maps like some women wove masterpieces in tapestries. Alicent finds peace in embroidery. No other lady in court can match her precise, even hands. She shares his love of planning, has excelled with all the feasts and balls her father the Hand gave her leave in.

A year after losing Aemma, Viserys has an answer for his small council. "I shall wed Alicent Hightower in a moon's time. I have already received Ser Otto's blessing and preparations for the wedding are underway."

Naturally every other member but Ser Otto himself erupts. None dare call the Hand of the King overreaching when he is present. Instead they try down Alicent's blood, drop hints of unsavory rumors, throw out lists of girls that at least have one verified drop of dragon blood.

"My most trusted council, I take your concerns all to heart, but the succession is already secure. Rhaenyra remains my eldest and my heir. She will be your dragon queen and Laenor Velaryon your king. Through their children all issues of the inheritance shall be put to rest."

"No one doubts your will, your grace," Lord Lyonel Strong agrees in his deep, ponderous tones. "I earned most of my links in law. Those of Valyria state the chosen heir of the dragonlord as in the right, and Rhaenyra's claim is furthered by seniority and proximity to any siblings yet unborn. Even Andal law has cases of lords choosing heirs they believe most suitable or disowning those unworthy. What worries me is the precedent made by a dragon king taking a wife not of the blood."

"Lord Strong, House Hightower is one of the oldest houses in the Seven Kingdoms. They have been established in Westeros far longer than my own has. Certainly they are at least of an age and standing of House Royce. My parents bid my brother wed to their heiress. Even the Conqueror bid his own son to marry Ceryse Hightower as his one lawful wife. Ties to Oldtown are as integral to our house as Blackfyre and the Iron Throne itself."

Viserys humors their objections with unshakable patience, calmly plowing over each one. He dismisses himself early for a good supper. The Dragonkeep's pens are well-stocked to save the royal dragons the trouble of hunting. He devours several cattle that will at least fill his belly the next several days.

Not in sixty years has a king taken a bride. Their wedding is unmatched in its grandeur. He and Alicent are not wed in the Dragonsept, but rather in the cavernous hall of the Dragonkeep. Alyssa Targaryen, who has not shifted shape since shortly after her husband's death, takes up most of the room in the audience. Her presence here is all the support the realm should need her son does not marry below his station. The Dragon Mother's eyes instead shine with contentment, that Viserys has regained some of his former joy with this new wife.

Alicent's gown is ivory silk and cloth-of-silver, diamond and pearl, in the light, chaste tones of the Maiden. The gown does not quite her willowy form, as is fashionable, but elegantly disguises the dragon scales beneath. Alyssa donated her own to the cause.

Outside the guards must clear a far wider space than they had thirteen years prior. Viserys is a king now, the second-largest dragon alive after his Mother. His bulk has long exceed Rhaenys, for his cousin is smaller and more lithely built. Even crouching low as he can, until his joints ache, Alicent still struggles to climb. He splays his wing beneath her, to hopefully catch her if she falls.

Once aloft Viserys soars low and stable, so that Alicent might bask in the roars of the crowd below without clinging for dear life. He circles the city seven times before alighting upon Maegor's Holdfast. His poor wife shakes like a leaf, but makes it down all the same. She flinches at the grin he gives her, for his fangs are black as his bones, and longer than her arms. Her fear evaporates when he resumes his usual form, cheerfully stout.

"My dear wife," he chides gently. "For a girl who grew up atop the Hightower you are certainly afraid of heights."

Alicent manages a smile, some color returning to her wan cheeks. "Your grace, the day the Hightower moves of its own power is the day it smashes into the sea." One hand uncertainly trails to the remnants of her skirt, and the unmarred armor beneath. Her eyes flick to the windows. "Must we..."

"No, my dear," he interrupts gently. "You'll be wedded and bedded like a queen deserves to be."

The last Hightower queen in this city had been poor Ceryse. Upon the foundations of the Dragonkeep the Beast King had claimed four unfortunate brides to make mockery of their marriage. Viserys is no monster to put his wife through even a shadow of that same indignity. In private quarters they dress in proper silks to greet the revelers in the halls below.

Already in her first few hours as queen Alicent carries herself with confidence and grace. Beneath her charm even some of the iciest lords start to melt, to at last consider her with open eyes. Viserys beams with pride when Rhaenyra embraces Alicent as stepmother. They have gotten along splendidly since before Viserys proposed. Now their bond will only grow stronger.

Not that Alicent can ever replace his dear, dear Aemma. But, if Viserys is going to last long enough to see Rhaenyra grown and stable in his place, then he needs a warm body beside his own, a voice to keep him company in the lonely dark.

Perhaps Rhaenyra will be the only child Viserys can give her. Daemon's marriage to Rhea has yet proven infertile, after all, and all of the Beast King's brides ended in disaster. Perhaps it is simply impossible for a dragon's seed to take root in a mundane woman.

They can still find happiness together, even if Viserys has to foster a whole damn army of Hightowers and distant relations in court. Anything to fill the void he cannot fill himself.

When _The Bear and Maiden Fair _begins, Viserys goes along in good spirits. He has _some _muscle beneath his fat, after all. He could not lift himself without it. Even if its admirers are far fewer than they were for Daemon's bedding ceremony, he is still properly naked when he and Alicent are finally left alone.

The bloody sheets triumphantly waved before the crowd silence all the unpleasantness surrounding Alicent and her relationships with Daemon and even gods damned Jaehaerys. She comes to him a maiden, and Viserys only having known his Aemma.

Within a year, their marriage is blessed with a child. His silver-gold hair and violet eyes prove his parentage immediately. Alicent christens him Aegon, for both the Conqueror and the little brother Viserys scarce had time to know. His wife gazes so lovingly, so proudly, down at their son that Viserys swallows his first impulse to deny the name. Aegon is the blood of the dragon. He has a right to the name, though he will likely never be one himself.

Unlike Baelon and Aegaerys, Aegon is born hearty and hale. He is the first child able to be presented to Alyssa Targaryen since Rhaenyra, back when his mother still took human form.

Viserys offers to present the babe to his mother. Alicent insists the honor is hers. Beneath the Dragon Mother's mismatched gaze, she stands tall and shivers only slightly.

Alyssa's low thrum of approval lights up her face brighter than even when she first held their son.

Two years later their boy is joined by a sister. She is daintier than Rhaenyra had been, with a rounder face and paler hair. She coos in his arms.

Alicent concedes to his request he name their daughter, but tension draws at her eyes. Viserys does not name her Alyssa, for his mother, or Aemma, for the hole in his heart. Her name is Helaena, entirely her own.

Alicent, stubborn in her own subtle way, names the next boy Aemond. They both know his namesake Aemon, the king who should have been. They have had this argument gently and indirectly for three years know, since the maester announced their firstborn a boy.

Otto Hightower is not here in person to see the birth of his third grandchild, as he has witnessed the last two. His insistence that a toddling boy be named heir over Rhaenyra, a proven dragon, has seen him dismissed from his office. He should count himself fortunate Viserys is his good-son. Were Otto not his wife's father he might take that forceful suggestion and his little queen's party in Oldtown as _treason._

Maegor has shown the realm what dragons do to traitors.

Viserys cannot blame Alicent for being so protective of the rights of her sons. His own mother had once fought tooth and claw to save his own rights when Rhaenys had sought to snatch them away. Nor can he blame Rhaenyra for being so hostile toward the stepmother that tries to tear her from her rightful place.

Viserys is king now. Alysanne is not here to hold the family together. His own mother is long beyond speech, well-deserving of her retired solitude in the Dragonkeep. So Viserys does his damnedest to keep them civil on his own, forces public reconciliations and time together. For now is grudgingly satisfied they can act civil in public. It does the realm no good to see dragons turn upon their own, as they had in the age of Maegor and Aenys.

He hopes Rhaenyra's marriage to Laenor, and a male consort for the throne, will at last put the matter to rest. He and Alicent certainly reconcile. Little Daeron is proof of that.

Instead, when Jacaerys is born, court insists his true father can be any _but _Laenor Velaryon. One of Rhaenyra's dragonseeds. Ser Harwin Strong is the most floated candidate, for all the boy has Valyrian hair and eyes. Even fucking _Daemon _is accused.

Viserys put an end to that years ago. He and Daemon both wear the scars from that day. The rumors against his grandson are just as baseless as those that held Alicent up as Daemon or the Wise King's whore.

With the boys so close in age, Viserys conscripts a woman from Dragonstone as their nursemaid, so that they might be raised as milk brothers and hopefully mend the rift before it rips asunder. Jace and Daeron despise each other. They scratch and bite and howl for the maid's best tit. That is when Viserys realizes how many damn dragons he's spawned, for two babes to hate each other so.

When Aegon finds his fire at ten, what should be one of Viserys' proudest days is tainted only by irritation and then _unabated rage._

He and Alicent rattle the Red Keep in their argument.

Well, he does. His wife just stands up to him, fearless as Elinor Costayne before Maegor.

Viserys shakes. And shakes. His claws shred his sumptuous robes. He grinds his teeth down from white enamel to the black dragonbone beneath.

When his words fall into rasping fury and Alicent's shouts turn into only buzzing noise, Viserys has the presence of mind to shove himself past his Kingsguard. He leaps from his balcony right before his human form falls away.

He blindly pumps his wings until far out to sea, and turns violet flames on the waves so that the kingswood or King's Landing itself won't burn with his fury. The sea spits and steams. Charred fish float up by the hundreds, by the thousands. The air reeks of ash and death.

Eventually he wears through his rage until only thick, hot shame remains. On leaden wings Viserys turns for home.

With great surprise he runs into his mother, the farthest from home she's flown in years. Her gaze sweeps over him, relief quick sparking into irritation. Viserys bares his teeth when she swats his left wing hard enough to bruise, but not knock him out of the sky. His deep whine of submission is apology enough for her. Beneath her scolding eye he returns home. She does not turn for the Dragonkeep until she sees him bundled up inside by his Kingsguard.

In tears and heartfelt apologies, he and Alicent reconcile. He speaks no more of the manner and neither does she.

Before he starts training Aegon properly, Viserys writes down his will, where he affirms Rhaenyra as his heir, and her male issue the next heirs in turn. All his damn council know quite well that it's his seal of approval upon it. It is the one and only will he signs, long before he can degenerate into apathy to be led around like Jaehaerys before him.

Their next few years are busy, with Daeron and Helaena both finding their fire in swift succession. Even Aemond proves himself one, rather dramatically. It's the boy's own fool fault for losing an eye the way he did, provoking his nephews so. No wonder they found their fire too.

Viserys dotes upon all his children and grandchildren. When still healthy enough to do so, he takes them for quick flights around King's Landing. Upon his wings failing him, too stiff and sore to take his weight, he takes them upon his knee to regale them with all the exploits of his youth. Daemon has at least made enough useful fodder for cautionary tales, if nothing else.

Viserys always does so in a large, comfortable wooden seat designed to hold his weight without inflaming his aches and pains. Only when necessary does he ascend the Iron Throne. Jacaerys is the only one of his grandchildren he lets scramble up into his lap, when beneath them is the seat of conquerors.

"This will be your seat one day, lad," he tells the boy fondly and unambiguously, within easy hearing of all the anxious ears listening in.

Viserys is the Gilded King, the Regal King, the Merry King. He is also a dragon, the largest in the world once his mother dies. (The Cannibal is no true dragon. Not anymore.)

His will is clear.

* * *

Aegon is soaring on heights he can't reach on wings alone when he is so rudely dragged back to earth. His lovely bed-mate shrieks, yanking the blankets to cover her bare breasts against the harsh light spilling in from the hall.

"Careful," he snidely tells the stone-faced guards looming in the hall. He knows in the firelight his eyes glow inhumanly. "You might wake the dragon."

His irritation curdles into something deeper at the looks upon their faces. His mother does not descend on him like a harpy for making yet another grandchild on the wrong side of the sheets. Her face is inscrutable when she orders him with her.

Aegon's stomach plummets. "Oh," he breathes in slowly dawning horror. _"Oh."_

He springs up from bed, fumbling for his clothes. His fingers shake so hard on the buttons of his doublet a guard must secure them.

The time is upon them. Surely it must be, with the guards all so heroically stoic and his mother so... expectant. Gods know how much time is left. Should he have someone fly out to Dragonstone to retrieve his bitch of a sister? Even fat with child she deserves to be here.

Aegon frantically tries to remember the last time he saw his father, so fat and content with Maelor on his lap and the twins at his feet. He hadn't _looked _sick. Not exceptionally so. No more than he always was these days, with his own body turned against him.

Father's only fifty-two, for fuck's sake! Aegon's gods damned grandfather is at least twenty years older. The Handship will have to be pried out of his cold, dead hands one day, probably when Aegon's an old man himself. Otto Hightower might have another twenty years left in him.

The king has... has...

Aegon scowls in confusion when he is not led to his father's bedside, but rather the great hall. The Iron Throne stands empty, surrounded by the anxious faces of the great council. Their eyes do not fixate on their queen, but upon him.

"N-No," he blurts out. _"Seven hells no!"_

"The king is dead," Otto Hightower intones evenly. "His crown falls upon you, his eldest son, by centuries of Andal precedent."

"Fuck," Aegon says, when it slams into him his father is _dead. _When had he last seen the man? Had long has his mother been- He shakes his head violently. "You know the damned will as well as I do. _Rhaenyra's _the heir. More importantly, _Rhaenys and Daemon _think she's the heir."

Aegon has himself and his brothers, because gods know Helaena doesn't have it in her to rip a cousin's throat out or roast men alive in their mail. For all Rhaenyra is grounded by her pregnancy, her form a fighting match for his size. The Blood Wyrm and the Red Princess are each at least twice his size.

"Your father, gods rest his soul, is not the final law of this kingdom," his mother breaks in. "His will would make _Daemon _king. Do you truly think your children safe with him as the true power on the throne?"

Aegon growls, baring his fangs for he has no better retort to offer. He knows the rumors that the rogue prince drove his own wife mad when she had outlived her purpose, had assassinated Laenor Velaryon, all that so he might wed Rhaenyra and creep that much closer to the throne. Threats to his ambitions always seem to meet most convenient ends.

"How would stealing that throne make them any safer?"

"Once you are anointed before the eyes of gods and men not even the Velaryons can challenge your claims," Otto Hightower adds smoothly. "Rhaenyra is prideful, but not suicidal. She has a mother's tender heart, and will not risk this newest babe or any of her bastards for it. Leave her Driftmark and Dragonstone to cling to. In time Daemon might even see sense. He has twin daughters of his own. He might think your brothers proper grooms for them, far better than the bastards Laenor claimed as his."

Aegon snarls, snapping at thin air. Fuck his father for dying so unexpectedly. Fuck his uncle's ambitions. Fuck his vindictive whore of a sister.

Fuck his mother for raising a dutiful son, one that is there for his children and sister-wife when it counts.

"So be it," he growls.

He settles into the same throne his great-uncle killed himself on, to curse Jaehaerys' line forever more with his wrathful shade.

It's as fucking uncomfortable as he's always imagined it to be.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Viserys' color and name are an allusion to the Gilded Era - a time of great wealth and progress on the surface, and utter shit once you scratched a bit more at it.
> 
> Aemma is wed at eleven. Her marriage is consummated at thirteen. She's stated to have had miscarriages before Rhaenyra's birth. Yeah, that got changed. She and Viserys jump the gun a bit on trying for an heir to get it over with. Rhaenyra's difficult birth leads to irregular periods the court blow out of proportion. And two brothers that don't live. There's probably one brief miscarriage or two between them. Nowhere near the nightmare implied in canon. (Keep in mind that some of Ann Boleyn and Catherine Tudor's miscarriages and stillbirths are probably also spurious. Chroniclers and amateur historians live for drama.)
> 
> Portions of Aegon's character in Fire and Blood imply getting crowned wasn't his idea. He might have been happier as a prince without any great power, screwing his way through court without any great pressures or consequences to worry about. It adds a little more gray to the Dance for me, because what was a civil war between two assholes should not be black and white.


End file.
